


The Long Way Home

by Roadie



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Mental Illness, victorian mental health practices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:22:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 127,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadie/pseuds/Roadie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's said that criminals aren't born, they're created by society. This is especially true of Helena G. Wells. </p><p>Fix all the things! This is my humble if ambitious attempt to write a story that could be to Warehouse 13 what "Wicked" is to "The Wizard of Oz": the full story of H.G. Wells, her growth and downfall and redemption through both the 19th and 21st centuries. It pairs with the canon narrative from the arrival of H.G. Wells to the end of the series, and then continues beyond to fix that S5 mess and give us the Bering and Wells ending we all wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Chronic Argonauts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hermitstull](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermitstull/gifts).



> I don't get off on torturing H.G., despite what it may seem like from my fics. I just hate how poorly her villainy and redemption are developed in canon. Her redemption arc proves she's clearly not a hardwired sociopath which means something happened to turn her into the villain she was in S2. This fic is my attempt to tackle that part of her character.
> 
> I promised fics to a few people back when I published "Hotels in America." This one's for hermitstull.

_I got it making flowers grow in hearts of stone  
I got it 'cause I always took the long way home_

\\\\\

It's Sunday afternoon, and a young man is standing in the entryway of the Bethlem Hospital.

The trip from his flat in South Kensington to the hospital in Southwark has taken him a half-day by horse-tram and Hansom cab.

"Can I help you, sir?" asks the nurse behind the glass.

The man nervously smooths his hair into place with one hand, and lifts his satchel higher on his shoulder with the other. He steps closer to the counter.

"Yes, please. I'm here to—to see, to visit, ah, uhm, I do believe that my… my…" He trails off.

The nurse tilts her head to the side and smiles, not unkindly. "Your…?"

"My sister," he says, looking down. "I believe she has, er, been given residence here."

The man swallows and shifts his satchel again. It's full of things he knows she likes. A small chess set (his chess set, which he never uses; never cared for the game). A needlepoint cushion, embroidered by their mother with an image of a rabbit and a flower. A crisp red apple. And books—three of them, physics and biology texts and journals from his previous term's courses at the university.

The nurse opens the patient registry on the desk in front of her. "Your sister's name, please, sir?"

 

///

 

Fifteen minutes later, the man is following a different nurse through long, grey corridors. He holds an apple in one hand and a needlepoint cushion in the other.

"Is she your younger sister, then?" the nurse asks.

Charles chuckles nervously. "Only by about ten minutes," he says.

"You're twins?" the nurse glances back over her shoulder at him. "How unusual!"

"Indeed," Charles shrugs.

Eventually, the nurse turns a corner and leads him through a doorway into a sprawling, manicured garden. Men and women in simple, grey clothing walk slowly along garden paths, accompanied by nurses. Charles spots one man near the far hedge, conversing vigorously with an invisible companion; another runs his hand shamelessly over his own body, seemingly unaware of the company around him. Two women grasp hands and jump up and down, shrieking and giggling like schoolchildren.

"Is my sister quite safe here, with all of these… people…" he waves his hand vaguely toward the yard.

"Oh yes, sir," the nurse says. She points to a large man in a dark uniform who strolls through the yard alone. "We have several guards who supervise the patients during their time out-of-doors. They intervene at the slightest hint of anything untoward. Now, as for your sister…"

"There," he says, pointing. "By that flowerbed, kneeling down."

"There she is indeed, sir."

He wants to run across the garden to her, but propriety indicates that he must follow the nurse. And since lack of propriety is probably the reason they've found themselves in this mess… well. He won't have the doctor thinking it runs in the family.

So he follows the nurse down the path to the garden bed where his sister kneels, puzzling intently over a rose blossom, plucked and held up to the light. Her head cocks a little to the side.

"It's fascinating," she says, without looking up, as they approach. "I never noticed that the flowers of roses have both stamen and pistil. I wonder if that means they can pollinate themselves? Surely this has been researched. If you could help me gain access to the appropriate publications…"

For the first time all day, the man feels able to exhale fully.

"Helena," he says.

Her head snaps up and to the side, and as soon as she lays eyes on him she smiles broadly and stands.

"Charles," she says, pulling him into a warm hug. "I'm sorry, I thought you were a nurse."

As Helena steps back, Charles' chaperone reaches for her hand and gently unwraps it from the stem of the rose she had plucked.

"Now, now, Miss Wells," she says, "We mustn't pick the flowers. We must leave them for everyone to enjoy. And these have thorns that are quite prickly, we wouldn't want to scratch ourselves!"

Charles watches the moment of shine fade from Helena's eyes. "Indeed we wouldn't," she says.

 

///

 

After the nurse has excused herself, Charles and Helena stroll slowly through the yard. No sooner has Charles handed Helena the apple than she bites into it, the juice running down her fingers.

"The food here is terrible," she says. "Tough meat and soggy vegetables."

"How long must you stay, Helena?" Charles asks.

Helena shrugs. "Until they consider me cured, I suppose."

"Cured… cured of what? Who on earth would be mad enough to think you belonged in bloody _Bedlam_?"

Helena pauses, waits for her brother to turn and face her.

"Do you know what's become of Tina?" she asks quietly, almost timidly.

Charles furrows his eyebrows. "Tina? You mean Christina Taylor?" he asks.

Helena nods.

Charles tips his head to the side. "Funny you should ask," he says. "In the same letter where Papa told me you were here, he told me that the Taylors have made plans to move to Manchester, to live with Mrs. Taylor's brother."

Helena's eyes are fixed on the grass. When she looks up again, her eyes are wet, glistening, tears threatening to fall. She sniffs.

"Helena," Charles says. Gently, he grips her shoulder and guides her to a nearby bench. "What's the matter?"

"Goodness, I'm sorry, Charles, but have you a handkerchief? We aren't permitted to carry them in here."

He pats around his jacket until he finds it and hands it to her; she dabs at her nose and the corners of her eyes. "Thank you."

"What's wrong, Helena?" Charles asks, again.

She glances up at him, then looks back down at where she's wringing his handkerchief in her lap. "Papa didn't tell you, then."

"I… apparently not? Tell me what?"

"Tina and me, we were… caught. By her father."

"Caught?"

"Caught. In her bedroom. Together."

Charles blinks once. Twice. Then his head falls forward into his upturned hands, elbows resting on his knees.

"Oh, Helena," he says. "You didn't."

"I didn't what?" she asks loudly, defensively, before catching herself and glancing around furtively. She leans forward and continues in a harsh whisper: "I didn't fall in love with a wonderful girl? I didn't kiss her?  I didn't wish, desperately, that I might have been a man, that I could marry her and work every day to give her the life she deserved? Because I did all of those things, and for the life of me, brother, I can't determine why any of it was wrong."

But Charles is shaking his head, and finally he lifts it from his hands and looks at her. "You were caught," he says. "I wish you hadn't gotten caught."

Helena sits up straighter; sighs. She clutches her mother's cushion to her chest. "Me, too," she says.

 

///

 

Charles returns to the doctor's office to pick up his satchel on his way out of the hospital.

"I'm glad you've come to visit," Dr. Austin says. "Women with Helena's condition benefit from the presence of strong male figures in their lives."

Charles nods. "I'll come again, sir. As often as I can make the trip."

"Good, good. I'm terribly sorry I couldn’t let you bring her those gifts. It's imperative that Helena's focus and energy be diverted to calming, feminine pastimes. Excessive attention to masculine intellectual and scholarly activities is almost undoubtedly part of the reason why she developed her, eh, deviancy."

Charles bites the inside of his cheek. "Yes, sir," he says, as he hoists the bag to his shoulder, still heavy with the weight of the books and the chess set.

"Items like the embroidered cushion are perfect. They will remind her of the security of the home, and the influence of a maternal figure."

"Yes, sir," Charles repeats, and then excuses himself from the office before the rage can drive him to pierce his own skin with his teeth.

 

 

///

 

 

"She threw a bit of a tantrum last evening," the nurse says, as she leads him through the corridors a fortnight later. "We've given her a sedative. Nothing too serious; Dr. Austin prescribed a light opiate. So if she seems somewhat… unlike herself? That's why."

Distantly, Charles hears a cry; a hoarse, masculine voice.

"Here we are, then," the nurse says. "She's in the common room this afternoon."

Helena sits in a rocking chair near the corner. Behind her, the window overlooks the palatial gardens, empty now in the grey and the drizzle. She rocks slowly, pushing with her toes against the tile, gaze fixed somewhere on the floor.

Charles thanks the nurse, then picks up a chair from an unoccupied card table and places it opposite Helena. Helena jumps a little when the wood clacks loudly against the tile, and then looks up and watches him as he sits.

"Charles," she says. Her eyebrows come together as though she's just remembered something, and her lips pull slowly outward across her cheeks. It looks vaguely like a smile, Charles thinks. Like she's trying to smile for him. "How marvelous to see you," she says.

"Yes, Helena." He swallows and glances to the side, and back again. "It's lovely to see you too. I, er…" He reaches into the pocket of his jacket. "I brought you another apple," he says. It's a green one, a little bruised from the journey but still shiny. He holds it out to her and she eyes it warily for a moment.

"Here," Charles says. He reaches over, picks up her hand where it rests on her lap, and presses the apple to her palm. After a moment's hesitation, she wraps her fingers around it.

"Thank you, Charles," she says. "You're so kind to me." She contemplates the shine on the green skin for a moment, and then slowly, almost as an afterthought, brings it to her lips.

Charles leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. "I have some news, Helena. I thought you might like to hear it."

All of Helena's movements are slow, Charles realizes, as though she's pressing through water. Like a drifting boat, she turns to face him. "What is it?"

"Do you remember when I was home for Christmas, that night we stayed up late talking by the hearth?" Charles asks. Helena's face is not responsive. She takes another bite of her apple.

Charles looks at her with what he hopes is an eager expression. "You were blathering on, as you do, about—a connection between time and space? Some kind of… continuum? Am I remembering that correctly?"

Helena glances heavenward, recollecting, as she chews and swallows. She tilts her head to the side. "I do remember that conversation," she says. "You were bored with it, until I managed to reframe my theories into a story of sorts. A narrative. And then, of course, you were suddenly rapt."

"It was a marvelous story, Helena! I'd never heard the likes of it. Travelling in time! And, well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Charles pulls a folded magazine from the inside pocket of his jacket. He hands it to Helena, who accepts it without reaction.

"Look at the cover, Helena."

She unfolds it with one hand, the other carefully holding her apple core, and her eyes move slowly down the page, until—

"But Charles, I didn't write this." Her fingers linger over the headline near the bottom of the page.

_Short Fiction: The Chronic Argonauts, by H.G. Wells._

"It's your story, Helena," Charles says. "I was merely the scribe."

Slowly, Helena opens the magazine and turns the pages one at a time until she finds it. Charles watches her eyes, watches the pupils dilate and then narrow, watches her gaze skip haphazardly about the page.

"May I keep this?" she asks, finally. "I'm afraid I can't… I can't seem to focus on the words right now, but perhaps tomorrow...?"

Charles thinks of Dr. Austin, and says, "I don't think that's a good idea."

Helena closes the magazine and holds it out to him. "Perhaps you're right."

Charles takes the magazine before he can think consciously about his actions, and rolls it nervously between his hands. Helena's forearms have come to rest on the arms of the chair, hands dangling limp from the wrist, an apple core held loosely between her fingers.

"I would love to hear about your studies," Helena says, quietly. " I have so many questions. But I can't think of any of them, right now. I find myself so very… tired."

Charles makes a decision, and opens the magazine on his lap. "Shall I read the story to you?"

She turns her head, slides her gaze into his, and for a moment, just for a flash, he can see _Helena_ looking out at him, through the haze of the sedative. "That would be wonderful. Thank you."

Charles sits up straighter and takes a breath. " _About half-a-mile outside the village of Llyddwdd by the road that goes up over the eastern flank of the mountain called Pen-y-pwll to Rwstog is a large farm-building known as the Manse.…_ "

 

* * *

 

 

H.G. Wells sits tall and stiff in the back seat of the car, a blanket wrapped around her head.

She looks like some kind of Bedouin rider bundled against a sandstorm, James thinks.

"You can lie down across the bench, if you like," he says. "It's perfectly safe."

She doesn't move.

"My names is James," he says. "James McPherson. I'm hoping we can become great associates."

She doesn't respond.

He gives up on talking; it won't do to have her becoming frustrated with him at this early stage of their partnership. As he turns onto the interstate he switches on the radio, fiddles with the knob until he finds a classical station. He recognizes the aria; it's from Tosca.

A few seconds later, something moves in his rear-view mirror. He glances back to see Wells shifting, leaning over to rest against the doorframe.

 _Progress_ , he thinks.

There's a brief stretch along the drive where they pull out of range of that classical station and are not in range of another; he fiddles with the dial again and finds news.  A mortar shell has erupted in the Afghan village of Sangin, killing fifty residents, including many children.

He shakes his head. "Do you hear this?" he asks, tentatively. "Destroying itself, humanity is. But together, we'll acquire the means to stop it. And we'll make ourselves rich in the process."

Behind him, H.G. Wells doesn't move.

As they drive closer to Minneapolis, McPherson fiddles with the dial again and finds another classical station. In the rearview, Wells sags deeper against the door as the melancholy strains of _O Sole Mio_ fill the car in Pavarotti's rich tenor.

Their journey ends, finally, at a low-rent motel near the airport at Minneapolis-St. Paul.  James turns off the car and lets it settle, for a moment, into silence.

"Wait here," he says. "I'll go and check us in, and then I'll come and fetch you."

She doesn't respond. He has stopped expecting that she might.

When he returns from the check-in desk, he starts the car again and drives it around the side of the building to a parking spot near the external stairway closest to their room.

"You'll want to sit up now," he says, "or you'll fall when I open the door."

In the first evidence that she's listening to him, and that she can respond, she sits up straighter. McPherson retrieves his overnight bag from the trunk. When he opens Wells's door, he does so slowly, one arm extended to catch her if she falls. She doesn't, though, so he reaches forward until he can touch her shoulder.

"Please forgive my familiarity," he says; "I imagine it's awfully untoward, by the standards you're used to. But I hope you can tolerate it awhile longer, since we have to keep your eyes protected from the light until tomorrow."

She does not respond, but she does follow his hand as he guides her slowly out of the vehicle. He leads her up the steps with an arm around the shoulders, and then guides her to the battered chair near the desk in the room.

With the door closed, the sliver of light coming through the blinds from the open-air walkway outside is all that illuminates the space.

"I’m going to uncover your head," he says. "I think it's dark enough for your eyes, but keep them closed, just to be safe."

He doesn't expect an answer, so he finds the edge of the blanket and begins to lift.

She is, he's surprised to note, quite beautiful. Extraordinarily so, in fact. He saw her bronzed form, of course, but somehow it didn't capture the height of her cheekbones, the angle of her jaw. Or, of course, her complexion: black hair, fair skin, the opposite of his wife but so differently stunning. Her hair is knotted into a chignon, and he thinks he would have been a happier man living in Victorian England if all women wore such beautifully tailored attire.

He shakes his head. She's likely young enough to be his daughter. _By some measures of age, at least._ He laughs inwardly. Still, he would do well enough to remember that _._

"All right," he says. "Let's have a go at opening your eyes."

He sees her take a deep breath, her lips coming to rest slightly apart, and then slowly she raises her lids. She blinks once, twice, and dark, expressionless eyes slide up toward his face.

"Hello, Miss Wells," he says. "Welcome to the year 2010."

 

\\\\\

 

He instructs her on the use of the toilet and the faucets, and then hands her a bag of clothing he had Leena order based on measurements she took of Helena's bronzed form.

"These are for relaxation and sleeping," he says, pulling a t-shirt and a pair of long cotton trousers from the bag.

She emerges from the bathroom with her blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, her leather shoes peeking out from beneath the pyjama pants.

 _Oh, hell,_ MacPherson thinks, _of course I forgot to have her order shoes._

"There we are," he says. "You must surely be more comfortable like that."

Wells tugs the blanket tighter around her shoulders, pulling it together at her throat as a modest woman might clutch at the neckline of her shirt. For a moment, her mouth opens and closes, like a fish's.

"I'm quite hungry," she says, finally, her voice raspy from disuse. She swallows. "How does one go about acquiring food in 2010?"

MacPherson smiles broadly. "I'm famished myself. Come, there's an extensive assortment of delivery menus here. I'm sure we can find something to suit your nineteenth-century palate."

They order sandwiches from an Italian deli and James unwraps them on the room's small table. H.G. picks hers up and eyes it for a moment, the mayonnaise seeping out along a leaf of lettuce, and then takes a cautious bite from one corner. She chews once, twice, carefully, as though he's asked her to take a bite of an insect instead of a meal, but as she swallows he sees her eyes flutter upward in a moment of orgiastic pleasure. She takes another, much larger bite and sets the sandwich back down on the paper and then extends her hands before her, flexing and fisting them, watching them move 

"This is real," she breathes after swallowing, almost too soft to hear.

"Pardon me?"

"I'm truly here," she says, louder this time. She looks up and meets his eyes in the shadows. "I'm truly free of the bronze."

MacPherson's eyebrows come together. "Well, yes?"

"Forgive me." H.G. watches her hands open and close once more. "After so many years—goodness, a _century_ —in one's own mind, occupied by nothing but one's own thoughts and hallucinations, it becomes difficult to trust one's senses."

"I know," MacPherson says. "I was bronzed, too. Not as long as you were, but…" he shrugs and takes another bite of his dinner. Sure, he was bronzed for a scarce few minutes, but there's nothing wrong with a little lie by omission in the interest of a greater good. He's making her feel she has a friend in this new century. That's all it is.

H.G. eyes him sidelong from under knit brows. "You're not a regent, then."

MacPherson inhales sharply to laugh and promptly chokes on his food; H.G. eyes him impassively as he coughs and sputters.

"No," he says finally, "I am most certainly not a regent. Those old fools would have left you to rot another five centuries, I'm sure."

"You've freed me illicitly," she says. When he nods, she continues: "Have you done it, then? Have you found a way to reverse death?"

He does not know why she asks the question but it's clearly very important; something in her eyes is frantic, her pupils wide and the vein in her neck pounding wildly, her fist clenched so tightly her fingernails must be gouging into her palm.

"No," he says quietly. "I'm sorry. We haven't."

H.G.'s white-knuckled fist loosens and she looks down, but not fast enough to guard him from the fleeting look of despair.

"Why am I here, then?" she asks.

MacPherson swallows the remains of his sandwich and notices she has still only taken two bites of hers. "Please, enjoy your supper, and I'll tell you the whole story," he says.

Obligingly she lifts the sandwich to her lips and takes a bite. MacPherson leans back in his chair and begins to talk about the profits they could share if they could find and sell the Minoan Trident.

"I know you found a piece of it during your tenure at Warehouse 12," he says, "but it's never been shelved. I searched in your house in London—we're in America now, by the way—and never found it, so I thought I'd simply come straight to the source. And then, by our considerable combined wit, we can track down the remainder of the artifact and make ourselves very, very rich."

When MacPherson meets her eyes again, they are dark, her countenance stern. She chews slowly.

"We shall have to return to London, first," she says, "but not for the trident. There's something else I'll need." The fingernails of one hand scrape slowly across the skin of the base of her throat.

MacPherson grins. "Fortunately, my dear, I've already booked us on a flight tomorrow."

H.G.'s eyes widen. "A _flight_?"

MacPherson nods. "You have much to learn, and I'll do my best to teach you before we touch down at Heathrow. Just follow my lead."

H.G. is grinning now and she shakes her head, incredulous. "Flying machines," she said. "Tesla finally did it."

"I'm afraid it wasn't Tesla, my dear, but a pair of American brothers…"

Later that night, as he lays in one bed and hears H.G. breathing deeply in the other, he resolves to take great care around the woman and to eliminate her as soon as her usefulness has expired.

There's something off, something terribly _sinister_ , about her, and he has no desire to find out the hard way what it is.

 

\\\\\

 

Myka and Pete have a short hop to Philadelphia before the transatlantic flight into Gatwick. Myka's tired—exhausted, really—after the insanity of the past few days, but she resolves to stay awake on the first leg of the flight so that she can sleep through the second.

To her right, Pete has his headphones plugged in and is watching the in-flight broadcast of _Two and a Half Men_.

Myka reaches into her bag and pulls out a book. The Warehouse's copy of this particular text was a hard-back, so she's thankful that she had her own paperback to carry, instead. What better way to try to work her way into the mind of H.G. Wells than to reread some of his fiction?

She settles back in her seat and peels back the well-worn cover. When all else fails, start at the beginning, and the beginning, in this case, is Wells's first published story, _The Chronic Argonauts._

 _Eyes and ears open, Slim,_ she thinks, as she begins to read: " _About half-a-mile outside the village of Llyddwdd by the road that goes up over the eastern flank of the mountain called Pen-y-pwll to Rwstog is a large farm-building known as the Manse.…"_


	2. Desperate Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1888, Helena does something desperate. In 2010, Myka feels something unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to tell the story of how "joie-de-vivre" HG turned into "end-the-world" HG involves some trips to some dark places. So, um, TW in this chapter for bad things happening in Victorian mental hospitals.
> 
> A lot of the modern half of this story runs parallel to the plotline we saw in season 2 (and, eventually, season 3). I don't really like writing fics that describe scenes that are in the show, so instead I'm writing the scenes between the ones we see on the show and I'm hoping that it will be relatively easy for readers to fill in the gaps from the appropriate episode(s). In this case, it's "Time Will Tell." If it comes across weird or clunky or hard to follow, let me know and I'll re-evaluate my strategy for upcoming chapters.

It's past dark when Charles returns to his flat in South Kensington. His landlady has left a tray of food outside his door; it's cold when he picks it up but, famished, he eats it anyway, perched at his small table. Mutton, potatoes, cabbage.

On his desk, where he left them, lie the neatly-stacked articles his tutor has asked him to read for tomorrow. He rolls his neck once, feeling the joints pop and crack, and then hunches down over the first of the stack, candle pulled close.

Seconds pass by. Then minutes. He realizes he hasn't even processed the title of the paper. The soft creak of the rocking chair against the hospital floor echoes between his ears. Helena's eyes, dull and vapid, staring through the floor near her feet while he read her own story, in his words, back to her.

He remembers her eyes when they were children. When they were ten years old, when Helena had attempted to teach him to skip stones across the water of the river near their Essex home. Her stones shuttled across the surface like water-bugs, frightening the gulls roosting on the far side, while his dropped immediately to the bottom with a loud (if remarkably satisfying) _plonk_.

"You're choosing good rocks but you must set them spinning, Charlie," she'd said, laughing. "It's the spin that keeps it from breaking the surface of the water."

_Of course_ , he thinks. _Of course she knew at ten years old what surface tension was_.

A few minutes later, she'd invited him to visit old man Suzuki with her. He was teaching her to fight in some special way they'd developed over in Japan or China or whichever Oriental country the man was from (Helena would natter on about the differences between all those countries, but damned if he could keep it all in his head). Charles had declined; he had never been one for conflict, even in practiced settings. He spent another thirty minutes practicing throwing his stones, and the next day, when he showed Helena how he'd mastered it, she'd clapped her hands and said "Good! Next, we must teach you how to whistle like a proper sailor." She put her fingers between her lips and demonstrated.

Charles is violently jolted from his reverie by the sting of hot wax against the back of his hand; it's his candle, breaching the cup of its holder as it melts. It's gone down by over an inch since he sat down, and he still hasn't turned a single page of his readings.

_Bollocks_ , he thinks. _Of all the damned bollocksing bollocksed bollocks. Balls and damn._

He stands, collects his jacket from the hook by the door, and makes his way down the stairs. There's a pub a few blocks down that he's never visited, and this is a night for a pint.

_The Morlock's Arms_ is an unremarkable pub, modern, with its interior stained in dark wood. It's not busy at this late hour, but it's not empty, either. A handful of patrons sit on high stools at the bar, gazing into their pints with varying levels of despair. Charles joins them. He orders a lager and stares into its depths, thankful that the reason _this_ thing can't meet his gaze is because, well, it doesn't have eyes. 

"You've the look of a man who's had a day."

Charles glances to the side. The speaker is a man of about his age, sitting three chairs over. He's well put together, hair neatly combed and clothing in good condition, but his face is pale, his eyes marred by dark circles.

"I have indeed, sir, but it seems I could say the same about you," Charles says.

The man laughs and shakes his head. "It's true," he says. "I work for Scotland Yard. The pressure we're under, right now, with that serial killer running about…"

"The Ripper?" Charles asks.

"That's the one," says the man.

It's morbid to think of serial murders as a distraction, but if Charles is perfectly honest with himself, it's hard to imagine that anything less shocking could displace the images in his mind.

"Name's Charles Wells," he says, as he offers a hand to his bar-mate.

The man smiles and accepts the handshake. "William Wolcott," he says, "but my friends call me Wooley."

Charles smiles. "Well, Wooley, I'd be fascinated to hear the Scotland Yard perspective on those murders. There's so much fluff in the papers, it's hard to know what to believe."

 

///

 

Valerie Jones has been a nurse at Bethlem Hospital for thirty years. She's seen many changes in that time. She's seen the emphasis on physical restraints decrease, the emphasis on relaxation and more… occupational types of therapies increasing to take their place.

Her attitude about the patients has changed, too. She's an adaptable, progressive woman, she likes to think, open-minded enough to learn new things even at her old age. When she first took the job, she had felt strongly that the patients were there because they were somehow deficient; they were closer to animals than humans, most of the time. But as she's spent more time here, gotten to know more of them, she's realized that most are, simply, ill. Some moreso than others, of course, but they all deserve to be treated with respect.

She keeps this in mind as she works with her girls, shows them how to change the sheets on the dormitory beds, guides them through the process of doing laundry, instructs them on the peeling and chopping of vegetables so they won't cut themselves.

But sometimes, she thinks, sometimes a patient comes along who proves exceptionally difficult to categorize.

Take that Wells woman, there. She folds the corners of the bedsheets in perfect, crisp, 45-degree angles, every time. She peels carrots faster and more efficiently than even Valerie herself does, to the point where Valerie wonders whether she should speak to Dr. Austin about the possibility that the woman may be obsessive-compulsive. Despite that, she is, most often, quiet, and reasonably pleasant, and truly seems to not belong here in Bedlam at all.

And then, out of nowhere, she'll have episodes like the one she's having now, wherein someone will have said something innocuous—in this case, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree"—and she'll begin, softly at first, to talk about how one can _learn_ about why apples don't fall far from trees by studying Newton. Then she'll move on, louder, to say that once one has mastered Newton's theories one can continue to expand one's mind by studying Bernoulli or Lagrange, or by visiting a library and reading the more recent publications and contemporary scholarship. And by now she is agitated, shouting, exclaiming that even the classics, even _Aristotle_ , had theories that might have explained why apples never fell far from trees, but nobody here would _know_ that, would they, because nobody has access to _any bloody books_ , not even _literature,_ let alone _science_ , and how on earth is she supposed togrow and heal as a person if she hasn't any tools or materials for _learning_ anything, if _nobody will offer her some kind of intelligent conversation_?

And now a guard is approaching her, now he's got his arms around her to restrain her, and now she's using—as she's used before—a combination of high-precision kicks and strikes to free herself, and now there are three of them, now there are four, and they're restraining her, and now here comes young nurse Sandra with the laudanum, and the guard is pinching Miss Wells's nose so she'll open her mouth, and there now, there, she'll be calm soon.

 

///

 

"Charles," Helena says in a cracked whisper, "I need you to help me."

They're strolling in the garden, along one of the carefully-trimmed hedges. Helena has taken his offered apple but this time she isn't eating it. She's holding it, turning it in her palms.

"What kind of help?" Charles asks.

"I'm going to go mad in here," she says. "I wasn't mad when I arrived but I fear I'm…." she crosses her arms in front of her abdomen, holding herself tight. "Between your visits, I might as well be alone. If I try to have a conversation…" she trails off as they cross paths with a guard; Charles notices she ducks her chin, glances up at him through her eyelashes.

"Miss Wells," the guard says, with a brisk nod and a quirk of the lip.

"Mr. Rodney," she replies, nodding back with a tight-lipped, downcast smile. She watches him continue his round before turning back to her brother, her smile vanished, eyes wide.

"Do you see what this place has made of me?" she whispers. "I bat my lashes at the guards, I remember their names and smile coyly at them in the hope of convincing _someone_ that I'm no longer some kind of sexual deviant. But if ever I try to have a conversation with anyone about anything more substantial than the weather they stop me. They tell me not to exert myself, that my _feminine countenance_ will not support it."

Charles sighs, runs his palms over his hair, pulls his thumb and forefinger down the edges of his moustache. "What would you have me do, Helena?"

"Write to Papa for me? You were always his favorite anyway." Her eyes are watering again, and Charles thinks he's seen her cry more often on these visits, within these walls, than in their entire lives before that. "They only way I can, by law, be released from here before the doctor deems me cured is to be released into his custody."

"I can write," Charles answers, "but mightn't it be best if you wrote him yourself?"

"I have." Helena swallows. "Not to ask him to fetch me, of course. The doctor would never send such a thing. I've written him to talk of the kinds of vapid things they permit us to discuss in here."

"And?"

"He's never written back. Nor has mother. I write to both of them."

Their walk takes them past a woman, sitting still and silent on a bench. Younger than him, Charles thinks, with fair hair and a pleasant, round face. Helena bends down a little and touches her shoulder; the woman's eyes slide up to her face. Helena is offering her apple on an outstretched palm. Wordlessly, the woman takes it, brings it to her lips, dispassionately chews, then looks back up at her, the corner of her mouth curling upward, like she learned how to smile by imitating a painting.

"She was pregnant when she arrived here a month ago," Helena says, as they continue their walk. "The baby was born last week and she hasn't laid eyes on it since."

"What's she here for?" Charles asks.

Helena shrugs. "Depressive tendencies associated with hysteria and the wandering womb," she says.

Their walk takes them back to the doorway into the hospital. They pause there; dusk approaches, and they both know that Charles must begin his return to South Kensington.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'll write to him," he says. "I'll do my best."

 

\\\\\

 

_Dear Charles,_

_That you have written me on your sister's behalf fills me with pride. I have raised you well, to look out for her, and I am happy to hear that you are visiting her when you can. I can only assume that such support will aid in her recovery._

_I hope I have also raised you well enough to understand why I will not petition for Helena's release, and why I most certainly will not accept custody of her. I assume she has explained what happened, and how she came to be hospitalized. Words cannot express the shame she has wrought upon this family. You know, of course, that Helena was the instigator of the problem; lovely young Tina would never have participated in such degenerate behaviour without your sister's influence. Your mother was ill in bed from the mortification of it for two weeks. She nearly lost her hard-earned position as a lady's maid and still fears what might happen if her friends learn the secret. We are fortunate that the Taylors decided to move, thereby saving us from having to do so; they are wealthier than we, after all, and have family in Manchester who can take them in, while we would have been driven to start from nothing in a new place._

_In full awareness of the severity of my language, hear this, Charles:_

_Helena will stay in that hospital until the doctor deems her cured and releases her on her own merits, or until she rots. I will never again be held responsible for her actions._

_When you have a moment, I do hope you'll write again with updates regarding your studies at university. I've been helping the neighborhood boys to improve their bowls in cricket. It's great fun._

_Your father,_

_Joseph Wells_

 

///

 

He tells Helena because he decides it would be more cruel not to. He watches her eyes turn wet and he opens his arms, reaching for her, but she steps back. She looks up, as though she can raise the brim of her lids to hold the tears back.

"I just need a moment, Charles," she says quietly. "Please. If I cry, the nurses will come running with more of that miserable laudanum."

On the way out, Charles stops to speak with Dr. Austin.

"You seem a responsible fellow and I'm certain that you would do your best to provide Miss Wells with the kind of environment her continued recovery requires," the doctor says, "but no, I'm afraid it's a violation of policy and of the law for me to release her into the custody of anyone other than her father or her husband."

That night, at the pub, Charles and Wooley talk about Scotland Yard and public safety over their pints. When he lies in bed later that night, Charles wonders what it says of his character that he's grateful for the distraction a serial killer offers from his concerns about his sister.

 

///

 

Dr. Jonathan Austin is the consummate professional. He's practiced psychological medicine for over twenty years, and stays up-to-date on the latest literature and treatments. His wife accuses him, at times, of feeling too much empathy for the wretches whose care he oversees, but it's important, he says, to care for those who cannot care for themselves.

He's packing up for the day, now, having finished his final round of patient checks in the wards and dropped off an updated list of medications and suggested treatments with Nurse Valerie. He's filing his paperwork into his briefcase, looking forward to an evening by the hearth, when—

Who on earth would be knocking now?

"Come in," he says, in a tight, deep tone which, he hopes, conveys both annoyance at being disrupted at the end of his day, and evidence that he's working to contain said annoyance in the interest of civility; he is, after all, polite.

The door opens and closes almost immediately; in the brief gap between, a woman has slipped in, dressed in the patients' drab grey.

"Miss Wells," Jonathan says. "How can I help you? Can I fetch a nurse for you, perhaps?"

"Oh, no, Dr. Austin," she says. Her arms are behind her back, one wrist held in the opposite hand, and she's walking toward him, slowly. Sauntering. "I had hoped to catch you privately."

"Now, Miss Wells. We have rules in place for a reason. They aid in everyone's recuperation." Jonathan clicks his case shut on his desk.

"Oh, I do understand, sir," she says, as she comes to a gentle halt in front of his desk, eyes cast down toward the hard wood. "I simply wished to stop by to thank you for all of your help and support as I've worked to combat my, er, my affliction."

Her eyes are moving now, slowly upward, tracking along the front of his clothing, up toward his face.

"I feel I've made great progress," she says, and her voice has never been quite so low in pitch, before, has it?

She's moving again, now, eyes fixed on his, she's stepping slowly along the edge of his desk, to its side…

"The restful activities, the practices in domesticity," she says in that rough timbre, and it's only after several seconds pass that he realizes he's staring at her lips. "I find myself feeling so very _feminine_ , nowadays. It's lovely," she says, and she's behind the desk now, alongside him, and how did he allow that to happen?

"Miss Wells," he says, and coughs. "I'm certainly pleased to hear you feel you're doing so well."

"Oh, you've no idea!" she says softly, smiling, and she does have a lovely smile. She is, in all respects, quite lovely to look at; he'd be blind, a fool, or a sexual invert himself not to notice it. And now her hand is on his sleeve, on his arm, her fingers resting lightly there. He glances up at the door, wills it to open.

Wills it to stay closed.

"I'd no idea what peace I was lacking, before," she's saying, and her fingers are moving now, up the inside of his forearm, and back down again. Up, and down. "How… tormented I was."

"Yes, that's…" the doctor swallows. "That's common for women in your condition." He has a wife. A _wife_. A lovely wife, at home, waiting for him, waiting for his return so that they might eat supper together.

"But I hoped you might help me with something, doctor." Her hand stops its caress, fingers wrapped around his forearm.

"What might that be, Miss Wells?"

"You've proven so reliable, such an admirable man in my life—" she squeezes his arm tighter, in emphasis—"and I've found, as my deviancy has loosened its grip on my psyche, that I simply cannot stop thinking about you."

She has slid her slight body between him and the desk. She has slid her hand over, to the front of his shirt, to the buttons there; she's letting her fingernails catch on the buttons, over and over.

_He has a wife. A wife who has given him two children, a boy and a girl, both healthy and wonderful._

"That's a common result of these treatments," he says. "We must work to redirect your attention to a more—"

"—suitable candidate?" Miss Wells interrupts, with a coy smile, looking up at him from between fluttering lashes. "I consider myself to be a woman of high standards, Dr. Austin," she says. Her hands are sliding down, now, to his waistband. They're unfastening the button there.

_It was treatment_ , he tells himself thirty minutes later, when they've dressed again and they finally leave his office. _She needs to have these emotions reinforced if they're to stabilize. It was an investment in her long-term health._

Miss Wells returns to her ward. Jonathan returns home, to his family.

  

* * *

 

  

Most employees of the Imperial War Museum in London's borough of Southwark know that they share their space with the ghosts of the former patients of the Bethlem Hospital, from before Bethlem was relocated to a new facility in Croydon. 

Were any of them to look out the window at exactly the right moment, one day in 2010, they would see a woman in her thirties standing beside the old artillery guns mounted for display outside the front entrance of the museum building that used to be the hospital.

They would see her rest her open hand against the base of one of the guns. They would see her lean on it, and then see her fist close slowly, fingernails grating along the surface, flecks of blue paint scraping free.

They might, if they were to look very, very closely, see the darkness that swamped the woman's eyes like oil across water. More than likely, they would mistake her for some kind of radical—a pacifist, perhaps, infuriated by the presence of a museum that archives and displays the vehicles and weaponry of wars past.

They might be inspired to call museum security, even.

But there would be no need, because the woman stays only a few minutes, and never enters the building. Then she turns and walks back toward the tube station, the set of her jaw firmer than it had been just a few minutes before.

 

///

 

James learns very, very quickly that the Warehouse reports and anecdotes of Wells's genius have not been exaggerated.

In the café, where they go for breakfast, she asks for the seat against the wall and spends most of the meal surveying the room. When they walk out, she carries herself differently than when they walked in; a little less stiffly, with a little more… well, for lack of a better word, more swagger.

They stop in a shoe store and she immediately chooses three pairs from the display, and once she's found the right size she asks James to buy them all for her. She walks out in a pair of heeled boots perfectly suited to the thirty-something professional look he's helped her to cultivate.

She shushes him when he attempts conversation at the airport gate. Her eyes cant low, resting unfocused on the floor a yard in front of her feet. She spends much of the flight in the same detached silence, but when she speaks again upon their arrival in London, her accent has slipped out of its Victorian formality, becoming thinner and sharper and substituting the occasional T-sound with a glottal stop.

Only a day out of bronze, and one would have to interact with her for quite some time to notice that she was in any way unusual.

James takes her to her hotel by tube. Once she's checked in, he purchases her a disposable mobile phone and a London A-Z to help her identify the tube stations nearest her destinations; he programs his own number into her phone and shows her how to use it to reach him. Then he insists that she sit down opposite him at the room's small table so that he can debrief her on the Warehouse's current agents.

He opens a file and turns it around so that the text and photographs are right-side-up for H.G. "The Warehouse currently operates the field with a skeletal staff of one supervisor, two agents, and a trainee," James says. "I would prefer it if we could avoid doing any lasting physical harm to the supervisor, Arthur Nielsen, but the others are disposable."

"Do they pose any real threat?" H.G. asks. "I've never been fond of taking life unnecessarily."

James smirks. "Such nobility, coming from the bronze sector."

Her eyes dart up from the files and James feels his smile drop. _If looks could kill_ , he thinks, and swallows hard.

"They might," he says. "I believe I've taken care of the young one, Claudia Donovan. She shouldn't be an issue. If you confront any of them, it will be Bering and Lattimer. They're decent agents, but still green. I don't know what they'll know about you. I don't know if they'll recognize you; I don't even know if they know to look for a woman. Lattimer operates on intuition, Bering operates by observation. If you meet them, choose your approach based on which you'll feel most able to confound."

While James watches, a lopsided smile pulls across one of H.G.'s cheeks as she scans the paperwork. "I'm almost disappointed," she murmurs, mostly to herself. "a man's libido is so very easy to confound. I'd hoped for a challenge, my first hop out of the bronze." She closes the folder and tucks it into her bag. "Where and when shall we reconvene, Mr. MacPherson?"

"Your flight back to America departs in two days," he says. "We shall rendez-vous in Rapid City and make our trip to the Warehouse together from there."

"And you'll have the anti-matter," she says, her voice gravelly, one eyebrow cocked at him. "Any arrangement we have will be annulled if you fail to deliver me the means to make the vest work."

"I'll have it," James says. He has no idea what she intends to retrieve from the Escher Vault. He doesn’t care, except insofar as she refuses to help him find the Trident until she has collected her possessions from the Warehouse.

"The only things that matter to me in this world are in that vault," she says. Her eyes have lost focus, reaching off into the middle distance. "Until I have them in my possession again, I couldn't possibly focus on any other task."

Again, James is struck by a wave of cold emanating from her like an aura. He paints on a gentlemanly smile and says, "Of course, my dear. You retrieve your vest, I'll obtain the anti-matter, and we'll reconvene in South Dakota."

"South Dakota," H.G. echoes. James watches her hand drift to the base of her throat and curl into a fist.

 

///

 

If there's one thing Pete should be used to after working with Myka for a year, it's being made to feel like an idiot. 

It's their groove, right? Impulses are his department, and the whole knowing-things thing is hers, and that's why they work, and it's also why they kind of want to kill each other half the time. And it's why he's cool with it when she makes an ass of him—because that's her job. That's what she's there for, is to know stuff he doesn't know, just like he's there to do stuff when she's too busy thinking about it.

Still: he's walking out of H.G. Wells's house with his tail between his legs, no doubt about it, and it's not even Myka that put it there. Yeah, he can take his licks and admit that today has maybe not been his finest, between the thing with the actor and then, you know, the other thing, with the bad guy. Girl. You know.

And the whole thing was just freaky. Like, she was one person, and then snap, she was another person. And sure, maybe sometimes he's got to be hit by a mack truck before he starts being observant but it's weird, how she just flipped it, like a switch. One second she's looking at him all doe-eyed, kissing in a way that makes him want to take a hop back to the 19th century to see if everyone's that good or if it's just her, and then _bam_ , her accent's different and she's looking at him like a math problem instead of, you know, a really tasty cheeseburger. And then there was the tesla under his chin. Let's not forget about that. Let's not talk about it, either.

It's just not normal, to be able to switch on and off like that.

Not that there's anything normal that ever came out of the Warehouse. The woman is practically an artifact.

"You should at least take a girl for coffee first next time, Lattimer," Myka is saying, laughing, elbow jabbed into his side as they walk to the corner to hail a cab back to the hotel. He winces: he's got bruises from that fall from the ceiling.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Pete rolls his eyes. "I'll have you know that _she_ was the one who wanted to, uh, skip straight to dessert." He straightens his collar and pops his neck. "Yep, what can I say? I'm irresistible to the ladies."

"Are you, now," Myka says, over her sunglasses.

"Hey man, if you don't feel it, that says more about you than it does about me. Just saying."

 

///

 

Myka feels something, all right.

She's kind of embarrassed by it. There are things she should have noticed. The handwriting that had put Edward Prendick's name in the guest log was, in retrospect, so obviously a woman's, and had the Warehouse not taught her _anything_ about what happens when you make assumptions?

_What an ass she made out of you and me, Pete_ , she thinks.

Pete's the one who thinks to grab Tubman's thimble from Artie's office before they head to the Escher vault.

"I've got an idea," he says mid-zipline, with that slightly choked tone that indicates he knows she won't like it.

"Pete," she says. "What is it."

He waits until they've landed before he starts to explain, but he only gets halfway through before she stops him.

"Seriously? Why can't _you_ wear the thimble? Just because I'm a woman, I have to be the one to bat my eyelashes at our smarmy super-villain of the week? I'm a _lousy_ flirt, you know."

"Trust me," Pete says, "I know—"

"—Pete!" Myka knows she set herself up for that one, but still, he didn't have to _go_ there, did he?

Pete holds his hands up between them, as if that could really hold back her irritation. "— _But,"_ he says, "I was talking to Artie about this artifact and he said that the person wearing the thimble needs to be able to call up a mental image that's, like, identical to the person they're trying to look like, especially in the face. And you're the one with the magical memory. So." He holds the thimble up between them, between his thumb and forefinger, and thrusts it toward her.

Myka doesn't even try to keep herself from rolling her eyes. " _You're_ the one who had your tongue down her throat, Pete."

"Right, and there are other of her… ahem… assets that I could probably replicate perfectly, but her face is a little fuzzy, I gotta admit."

Myka groans. "You are _impossible_. Fine." She takes the thimble and, holding her left hand up, fingers wide like she's about to do a magic trick, plants the thimble on her ring finger. Instantly she feels a twisting, tugging sensation, like she's a wet rag being wrung out, and then there's a brief feeling of dropping, and then it's done. She looks at her outstretched hands, paler and squarer than her own, with shorter fingernails.

"Okay, then," she says, and chuckles at strangeness of the shape of the vowels in her throat, forming that impeccable British accent. "How do I look?"

When she looks up again Pete's eyebrows are halfway to his hairline and his chin has dropped to his collarbone.

"Damn, Myka, you're making me want to get all up-close and personal with that face again, and that's just weird because it's _you_."

She punches him in the shoulder, hard.

"Ow!" Pete yelps, hopping back. "Yeah, you're still Myka in there, aren't you."

"Stuff it, Pete. Let's just get this over with."

It will be awhile, some time yet, before Myka will admit to herself that the clarity of H.G. Wells's face in her mind has very little to do with her eidetic memory.

Then, for the second time in her life, Myka watches somebody commit murder, and knows that whatever her reason for remembering Wells's face the first time around, she can say with absolute certainty that she'll never forget it now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to the historical Joseph Wells. I have no reason to believe he was as vile as I'm portraying him here.


	3. The Flying Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'Cause birds need feathers to fly, but feathers can't fly on their own. And she's never been real good at living the difference between flying and falling, know what I mean?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a craaaaaazy long chapter.
> 
> Some language used to describe folks with mental illness or disability is offensive nowadays but is used here in 19th c period context.
> 
> Some important TWs this chapter include: implied physical restraint of the mentally ill, drug abuse and reference to overdose. One of the characters is a trans* teen prostitute (no, she's not the one with the drug problem).
> 
> On the plus side, the Bering & Wells slow burn tees off in this chapter!

Nurse Valerie truly does have a soft spot for Helena Wells when Helena isn't going out of her way to be difficult.

Just look at her, now, the way she's talking to Tommy Smith, the elderly simpleton, who is devastated because he accidentally tipped a bird's nest and broke the eggs on the ground. She is soft with him, patient, as together they put the nest back in the tree.

"There, now, the mother bird can come back and lay more eggs here," Valerie hears Helena say.

Tommy nods and sniffs, his greying hair flopping down over his forehead. "Will she?" he asks.

"She might," Helena says, "but if she doesn't, it will be because she found a new tree and built a new nest, up high, where nobody can accidentally disturb it. Don't you worry, she'll have plenty of young, yet."

In moments like this, Valerie truly thinks that Helena has the soul of a wonderful mother, buried beneath her broken psyche. It's incredibly tragic, particularly given the circumstances.

 

 

///

 

 

"You're _pregnant_?!"

Charles shouts it instead of "hello" when he finds Helena in the common area, his words echoing between the wood floor and the plaster walls of the room. The soft buzz of conversation around the room dies; the gazes of nurses and patients turn and alight on the brother and sister talking in the corner.

"Charles," Helena says, placating, "Please don't lose your temper. It won't change anything."

" _Don't_ _lose my_ —" Charles begins, loudly again. Helena cocks her eyebrow; Charles glances around the room, catches the eyes of their audience, and lowers his voice. "Don't lose my _temper_?" he whispers, enraged spittle flying from his lips. He doesn't care. "How could you get pregnant in here, Helena? _How_?"

Helena has the audacity to actually _roll her eyes_ at him. "Surely, brother, you don't need me to explain _that_ to you." She crosses her arms over her chest.

Charles has had a lifetime to develop a tolerance for his sister's unapologetic arrogance and sarcasm, but now, in the face of a problem that _he_ , not she, will somehow need to resolve, he reminds himself to breathe, deeply, in through the mouth and out through the nose. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, and then runs his palms down the length of his face.

"Dr. Austin has asked me to find a home for the baby," Charles says.

Helena's eyebrows come together. "What? Why? The child is mine."

Charles fights not to fist his fingers in his own hair in exasperation. "You can't raise a child in a sodding _asylum_ , Helena," he shouts, gesturing to the room with an open hand, as though the inappropriateness of the environment requires pointing out.

"I won't _be_ in the _sodding asylum_ by then. If this doesn't convince them that I'm cured, I can't imagine what will!" Helena shouts back, throwing her arms up.

"Miss Wells! Mr. Wells!"

Charles and Helena turn their heads simultaneously toward the voice. It's Nurse Valerie, approaching them at a quick clip, jaw set across her angular, unpleasant face. "You're upsetting the other patients. I _must_ ask you to soften your tone, or I shall be forced to ask you to take your leave, Mr. Wells."

Helena palms the back of her neck and looks down at the floor. "I'm ever so sorry, nurse. We'll be quieter."

Charles shifts his gaze from the nurse to Helena and back again. "Yes," he says, "I do apologize."

Nurse Valerie nods officiously and turns on her heels to resume distributing the afternoon medications.

"Helena," Charles says, softer, "the doctor doesn't think you're cured. He thinks you've gotten worse. He says your sexual inversion disorder has been supplanted by severe hysteria."

Helena's eyes widen as though she's been slapped and she steps back, fumbling until she grasps the arm of a rocking chair and collapses into it. Her hands drift to her knees where they bunch and release the fabric of her dress, over and over again.

"Dr. Austin said that?" she says quietly.

Charles pulls over a chair from the nearest table and sits opposite her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"How did this happen, Helena? The doctor says that all of the guards were reviewed and he's confident it was one of them."

She blinks in silence at the movement of her hands against her own knees.

"Dr. Austin says that in a moment of delusion, you must have seduced one of the half-wits in here," Charles tries again, as softly as he can.

Helena's eyes snap up at that, hands spreading flat against her thighs. "Dr. Austin said _that_?" she repeats, in a harsh whisper.

Charles nods.

Helena's eyes widen and moisten, and she pulls away from him, just a little. "You don't believe him, surely," she says.

Charles heaves out a heavy breath and shrugs. "I've no idea what to believe, Helena."

The moisture in Helena's eyes finally wells up and crests over her lower lashes. Charles remembers, oddly, the moment when they were seven when their father told them that Charles would be enrolled in school, but not Helena, because if the family could only afford to educate one child it should surely be the boy; she had been devastated, consoled only by Charles' promise that he would let her borrow his books when he wasn't using them.

She pulls her sleeves over her hands and scrubs angrily at her cheeks, almost as pale as the walls around them. "Do you truly think so little of me?" she murmurs sadly.

Charles reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out his handkerchief, which he hands to Helena. She eyes it for a moment like it might explode, but then accepts it and dabs at the corners of her eyes.

"I just need to know what happened, Helena," Charles says. "I have seven months to find a home for the baby, and if the father is a simpleton then Dr. Austin says the baby—"

"Dr. Austin this, Dr. Austin that," Helena spits, much louder than necessary. "Dr. Austin is the greatest simpleton in this house!" She stands abruptly, balling his handkerchief and tossing it into his lap with completely uncalled-for aggression.

Charles stands with her. "Helena—"

"I would like you to leave now, Charles. Thank you for visiting." She spins on her heel and crosses the room to another empty rocking chair where she sits, covers herself with a blanket, and closes her eyes.

Charles doesn't know whether to cry, laugh, or scream at his sister's perpetual impossibility. But he remembers their childhood and how Helena would help him with his mathematics and spelling, even though she'd learned them from naught but books and he'd been tutored in school.

He'll find a home for the baby somehow. His parents are, of course, out of the question, and there's no way he could raise a child on his own, nor afford a housekeeper to help him with the job. But he'll find something.

 

 

///

 

 

Charles looks tired and haggard when Wolcott sees him at The Morlock's Arms that night. It's not an uncommon look on him ("studies at university are stressful," he says, usually) but it's especially stark this evening, as though someone's spilled an inkwell beneath each of the man's eyes.

"Long day?" Wolcott asks.

"You've no idea," Charles sighs as he heaves himself onto a barstool.

"Did you go to the hospital again today?" Wolcott asks. He knows Charles has a relative who's been sick in hospital for many months, but Charles has never offered more detail, and Wooley's had the distinct impression that further inquiry wouldn't be welcome.

Charles nods, and then raises his hand to flag down the bartender and order a stout.

"Well," Wooley says as Charles awaits his order, "I'm afraid the trail of the Ripper's gone cold, so I can't regale you with more of those stories. But I've been reading that book you recommended."

"Oh, the Sherlock Holmes thing?" Charles asks. His pint splashes a little as the bartender deposits it in front of him; he picks it up and indulges in a healthy gulp.

Wooley smiles a little and nods. "It's great fun. What I wouldn't give for a consultant like that over at the Yard," he adds, laughing, "We'd have got the bloody Ripper months ago."

 

///

 

 

There's no warning this time, no knock on the door, to alert Jonathan Austin of his unexpected guest; the door simply opens, she comes in to his office, and it closes behind her.

He clears his throat. "Miss Wells. I don't believe we have an appointment right now?"

She looks at him and lifts an eyebrow, cocky, as though she knows something he doesn't. Wordlessly, she meanders to the bookcases on the far wall.

"Here lie the riches of Bethlem Hospital," she says, wandering slowly alongside the shelves, trailing her fingers over the leather-bound spines. "We've discussed the vice of selfishness, Dr. Austin; it's improper to keep such bounty all to oneself."

Jonathan sets his pen on the edge of his blotter. "The books wouldn't be good for you. We've discussed this."

But Wells keeps moving, eyes darting from shelf to shelf, finally alighting on one brown volume. She reaches up, catches the corner with the tips of her fingers and pulls the book down into her hands. "E.B. Tylor, the great ethnologist," she says, as she opens the book and begins to thumb through the pages.

"Put that back, please, Miss Wells." Jonathan is controlling his irritation well, he thinks, particularly in the face of such glaring disrespect for his prescribed treatment regime for this patient.

She cocks her head to the side, acquiescent, and closes the cover. "Tell me, Dr. Austin," she says, as she reaches up to replace the book on the shelf, "do you subscribe to Mr. Tylor's theory that our society is the most developed in the world, and that every other savage or barbarian culture is simply losing the race we call 'progress'?"

"Miss Wells—"

"Because I can't help but wonder," she speaks over him, and he feels himself recoil as if slapped by the indignity.

"Miss Wells—" he says, louder this time, but she turns on her heel to face him and begins to stride toward his desk, speaking louder still—

"—wonder if the so-called savages of the world are also prone to disavowing their unborn children, or if that's a modern quality of this so very progressiveestablishment," she growls, and the fronts of her thighs are pressed to the edge of his desk opposite him.

Oh, no. _No_. She's got some nerve, bringing this up. He slams both palms against his desk and is gratified when she twitches a little in surprise, her self-righteous smirk dropping for just a moment.

"You can't possibly be insinuating that I'm the father of your child," he growls.

And there's her smirk again, the pretentious, arrogant…

"Oh, can't I?" she says, with a chuckle—she's _laughing_ at him. "Have there been any developments that have radically altered our scientific understanding of where pregnancies originate? Because as we both know, if new knowledge has been uncovered since I arrived here, I certainly wouldn't be aware of it."

Jonathan pushes his chair back and leaps to his feet, leaning over the desk toward his patient. He takes a deep breath, releases it, and says, as calmly as he can: " I cannot possibly be the first or only man you've had here. You're oversexed, Miss Wells, it's a clinical issue, and these things emerge in patterns. I don't know how many other guards or patients you've seduced, but care will be taken in your observation until—"

A smaller, strong fist pounds fiercely on the surface of his desk. "You most certainly _are_ the only one!" Wells shouts. " _Oversexed?_ You actually think I would... I would _do_ that to one of the poor men trapped in here— _"_

"Yes," Jonathan says, in a voice he hopes is calming. "I do. And I don't blame you for it. Sickness is sickness."

"Sickness is…" she shakes her head, as though incredulous, and lifts one hand to cover her mouth. She closes her eyes to re-center herself. "This is a pointless conversation," she says, exhaling. "Here's a more meaningful one: the child growing in my womb is half yours and I have no home to give it. Do you?"

It is, as they say, the straw that breaks the camel's back. Jonathan sits back down in his chair, reclines a little, and picks up his pen in a gesture that, he hopes, she will interpret as dismissal. "There's no place in my home for your bastard, if that's what you're asking."

And that's when she completely loses control.

"My bastard? _My bastard_?" She slams the front of the desk with both hands. "It's a _child_! There is a _person_ growing inside me who needs a home, and you won't let _me_ raise it—I would sooner raise a child in the seventh circle of hell than in this establishment—" her hands grip the back of the chair opposite him and flip it onto its back.

 Jonathan stands again and reaches across the table to try to catch one of her flailing limbs. "Please, Miss Wells, this agitation isn't good for the baby."

"What, now you care about what's _good for the baby_?" She bats his hands away easily and reaches for his lapels, and she's surprisingly strong, absurdly so, and Jonathan feels himself pulled over his desk toward her with a jerk that sends his own chair toppling backward. "What's _good for the baby_ is a stable home, a family," Wells growls, "and incidentally, what's good for a _family_ is for self-important hucksters like you to keep their spindly little pricks in their trousers—"

The door opens. Someone from outside the office has finally heard the commotion. Two guards charge in, and perhaps it's because she's so worked up that they manage to subdue her more easily than they often do, even while she bucks and fights in their grip.

In rushes Nurse Valerie with the bottle of laudanum, but—

"No laudanum," Jonathan says, standing straighter and smoothing his lapels back down against his chest, "nor any other tranquilizer while she's pregnant. We'll need to use other means."

"Yes, Dr. Austin," Nurse Valerie nods and runs back out of the room to fetch the necessary restraints.

 

 

///

 

 

A fortnight passes before Charles feels ready to return to Bethlem to visit Helena after his abrupt dismissal the previous time. When he arrives, the nurse stops him in the entryway.

"She's not ready," the nurse says. "If you'll wait here, someone will fetch you shortly."

It's a puzzling development; there has never been any "preparation" required before he could see her on Sunday afternoons in the past. Something to do with the pregnancy, he reasons, and he slides his hands into his pockets while he waits in the lobby.

When he sees Helena in the common room, she looks… different. Her hair, always kept up in a neat chignon, lies down against her back in a simple braid. And her eyes—they aren't vacant, as when she's been drugged, but they're simply… dull.

"What's happened to you, Helena?" he asks her, softly.

She shakes her head and waves her hand at him, dismissively. "I'm fine. Shall we go for a walk in the garden?"

He agrees, but as they walk he can't help noticing that she seems to have developed some tics he's never noticed before: she flexes and releases her fists almost obsessively, and rolls her shoulders often as if to loosen them. He wonders if it might be the pregnancy, too, though she's too early on for there to be many visible changes.

"I've had quite a bit of time alone, lately, so I passed the hours by telling a story to the baby." Her hands rest over her abdomen, like a shield between it and the quiet garden around them. "If I tell you, would you write it, like you did the last one?"

Charles smiles. "Certainly, Helena. What's this one about?"

"It's about a lieutenant talking to an ethnologist. The lieutenant tells the story of how he accidentally persuaded a group of Indian Sepoy that he was flying, when in reality he merely managed to survive jumping off a cliff."

"Sounds thrilling," Charles says. "Start from the beginning?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Keisha lights a cigarette and thanks god, or the universe, or whatever, that the weather is finally warming up, like _actually_ warming up, after this crazy-ass winter and late spring. 

"Can I borrow that?" asks Dawn, pointing to the lighter. "Mine's outta juice."

Keisha nods and hands it to her, then bends down and straightens the hem of her skirt. She's tall. Crazy tall to begin with, then add the six-inch monster heels and she's practically a giant. She hates it for life, but not for work. For work, it helps, a lot of the time. Guys who go for girls like her usually like the fact that she's tall.

"Hey," Dawn says. Keisha straightens up and Dawn is holding the bic back out to her, but as Keisha takes it, Dawn jerks her chin to point down the road. "Someone's lookin' at you," she says, before taking a thick drag and backing away. "You get this one, you take something to Feather, yeah?"

Keisha nods _yes_ and then turns around, and sure enough there's someone walking up the way, and when you been doing this job long enough you can tell when someone's looking at you even before they can tell it themselves, and this person's looking. Typically the johns come through here in cars but sometimes walkers happen. The walkers are good because usually they just want a couple hours in the hotel around the corner and sometimes Keisha can get another trick or two in in the same night.

It takes a second before Keisha realizes it's a woman who's looking, walking down the sidewalk in expensive clothes like she owns the damn place, like this shithole is someplace better than Corona after dark, which is what it is. For a second Keisha worries about this woman checking her out, walking like that, because half a block past Keisha this woman's going to cross Joey and Joey doesn't like it when people don't know how to behave on his turf.

But the woman's still looking, walking closer, and she's not even faking anymore like she's not. So Keisha stands a little taller, steps out into the middle of the sidewalk and cocks her hip, stretches out one long, long leg and says, "Hey, honey, you looking for company tonight?"

The woman stops and looks Keisha straight in the eye, and that's weird because usually they don't want to look her in the eye at first, like they're embarrassed, like she isn't selling them something she's sold a thousand times before, like she's going to judge them for it. But this woman, she's looking at Keisha out of the corner of her eye like a teacher who don't like your excuse for being late to class or something.

Keisha steps back, feeling like a butterfly on a pin. She opens her mouth, trying to figure out how to back her way out of this hella uncomfortable situation but then the woman starts talking.

"How much for the pleasure of your company for the evening?" she asks, and damn if she don't sound like Mary Poppins or some shit, like she's from England.

"Depends how much time you want," Keisha says. "And what services."

The woman stares at her again, like she's staring right through her, and Keisha fights the urge to step back, like these sidewalks haven't been hers since she was fourteen.

"Well, perhaps that will depend on how well we get along," the woman says. "Come along."

And the whole conversation is so weird that Keisha goes with it, because even if this woman's a serial killer or something Keisha's got a good foot on her in height and at least fifty pounds in weight and she's pretty sure nothing bad can happen. So she follows her down the sidewalk, past Joey who glares at her because she's not supposed to talk business on the street like that. Half a block later Keisha's phone beeps. The text is from Joey:

_if shes a narc ur on ur own_

Keisha closes the phone and puts it back in her purse. "There's a place over here we can go—"

But the woman keeps walking. "I'm hungry," she says. "Is there a place where we could perhaps find something to eat?"

Keisha walks her to the Dunkin Donuts but the woman turns her nose up at it (seriously?) so they keep walking for awhile—it feels like forever in Keisha's shoes—before they get to a cleaner part of Queens and there's a Denny's. This is way outside of Keisha's usual turf; the blonde at the host stand looks her up and down before taking them to a booth in the back corner.

Well, whatever. She's been on the wrong side of worse.

"Order whatever you want," the woman says.

The woman orders a club sandwich and fries (seriously, who buys anything that's not breakfast at Denny's?) and Keisha orders a Lumberjack Slam, 'cause she's aiming for leftovers.

"So you gonna tell me your name?" Keisha asks.

The woman smiles, but just barely. "Perhaps. Will you tell me yours?"

"Perhaps," Keisha says, mocking just a little, and she's just being contrary, she knows, but whatever.

"A different question, then," the woman says, leaning forward on her elbows on the table. "How old are you?"

"Twenty," Keisha says, smooth as anything. But the woman cocks her eyebrow and twists her mouth to the side.

Keisha rolls her eyes. "Fine, eighteen."

The woman shakes her head _no_ , ever so slightly, and Keisha's good at this, she's been doing this for awhile, like more than a year but she's never been caught out so quick, and while she was maybe a little worried that this woman was a narc after getting Joey's text, she's not worried about it anymore, because no cop figures it out that quick.

"Sixteen," Keisha says.

The woman nods like she heard what she wanted to hear, and sits up again. "Helena," she says.

Keisha sinks back against the bench. "Okay. Keisha."

"Well, Keisha," Helena says, "tell me how a young woman such as yourself would find herself living as you do."

Keisha's eyes open wider, because usually people are sort of weird about using girl or guy words for her when they don't know her well. A lot of the time people use the wrong words but when it's johns they usually just avoid using words like that altogether.

This lady is weird, Keisha thinks.

"If you don't know the answer, I think that's a kinda personal question," she says.

"Well, I'm compensating you for your time this evening, so I believe I'm entitled to ask you whatever I want."

Keisha opens her mouth because _hell_ no, paying for her time doesn’t give some bitch the right to know her life's story, but the woman holds her hand up to stop her, like she's expecting it, and says, "You need not answer truthfully, nor even answer at all. I prefer honesty, but I do always enjoy a good story when that isn't an option."

Keisha exhales, and damn if this isn't the most unusual trick she's pulled in… maybe ever.

"I guess some parents are okay with it when their little boy says she wants to live as the little girl she always was, but not mine," she shrugs. "Whatever. I made it work. Obvi."

"Yes, _obvi_ ," Helena says, and there's something thin in her voice, thin and angry. She's looking at Keisha but she's sort of looking through her, and one hand slides inside the collar of her shirt and wraps around her necklace.

"Hey," Keisha says, "you okay?"

This seems to sort of jolt Helena out of it and she says, "Yes, yes, of course."

The food comes and they eat and they chat, and this lady is _weird_ (like, Keisha's pretty sure she didn't know what GPS was. The hell?) but she's also nice enough. And she's all proper, with that accent like somebody from the movies or something, but she's eating this Denny's sandwich like it's the last meal she's ever gonna have.

"So you're from, like, England or something?" Keisha asks.

"Yes," says Helena, as she smothers a fry in ketchup.

"So why are you here in New York? In—in Queens?"

"Work," Helena says. "A colleague of mine had some things stored in Queens that I needed to retrieve." She takes a long drink of her water and Keisha can tell that this line of conversation is over.

Keisha has set her silverware down when Helena looks at her, and then at her plate, that still has a whole slice of French toast on it, and some sausages, and some potatoes. Keisha ate all the eggs, 'cause they don't travel well.

Helena looks at Keisha's face, and then at her hands. Keisha realizes she's tapping the tabletop without really thinking about it. She stops.

"You're still hungry," Helena says. "Why don't you finish it?"

Keisha feels her eyes go wide, deer in headlights. She picks up her fork because Helena's right, she _is_ still hungry, but she was really hoping to box up these leftovers and bring them to Feather. If she can find Feather, that is.

"I thought I'd save it for tomorrow," Keisha says. "A girl's gotta watch her waist and stuff."

"If you were watching your waistline, you wouldn't have ordered that meal," Helena counters.

And it's so weird because seriously, this woman sees right through her, and that isn't fucking typical for her because not to be whatever but you learn to be a damn good actress in this line of work.

Keisha sighs. "I was going to bring it to a friend."

Helena's sandwich freezes halfway to her mouth. "A friend," she says. "Is this friend a… colleague?"

Keisha can't help but snort a little at the word choice, like she works in an office or something, in some cubicle somewhere. "Sort of," she says. "On her good days."

"Finish your meal," Helena says. "I'll order something else for your friend, on one condition."

Keisha looks at her. Waits.

"I want you to take me to this friend of yours to deliver the meal in person."

Keisha starts shaking her head before Helena's even finished the sentence. "No. No. I mean, she can be hard to pin down, and she's in a _real_ bad place these days—"

Helena holds up a hand. "You must have some sense of where she'd be if you'd been planning to bring food to her that you'd otherwise eat yourself. And I assure you, whatever her 'real bad place' may be, I'll be fine."

Keisha swallows and looks down. She wears a ring on her right thumb, just metal, nothing fancy, and she twirls it around with her other hand. Eventually, she picks up her fork. "Fine," she says. "But we're taking a cab to get there, and you're paying for it."

 

///

 

The cab doesn't want to go far off the main drag in this corner of town. Keisha says it's fine, they can walk the rest of the way, so Helena pays the man (Keisha has to remind her, awkwardly, to tip) and he's gone practically before the door is closed. 

A couple blocks down the road is an abandoned storage facility. Keisha leads them down an alley to the entrance, which is really a big piece of plywood propped against where there used to be a door.

"You might want to take a few deep breaths before we go in there," Keisha says. "It smells pretty bad."

Helena smiles a little and, sure enough, inhales a few times deep through her nose, and out through her mouth. Then she wraps her fingers around the edge of the plywood and pulls it back so Keisha can lead them inside.

They find Feather passed out in a corner of one of the old storage rooms, curled up on her side with her back to the wall. The syringe is still on the floor, next to the foil and the tourniquet.

"Hey, Feather," Keisha says, kneeling beside her. She reaches down and taps her cheek a few times, gently. "Hey. Somebody wants to meet you. We brought you dinner, girl."

Helena has crouched down just behind Keisha, holding the Styrofoam container from Denny's in both hands.

After a minute Feather finally blinks. She looks up at Keisha and her eyes are all blown out, she's high as a fucking kite, of course. But she smiles.

"K," she says. "It's good to see you."

Used to be that Keisha would cry whenever she saw Feather like this. This was why Joey kicked her outta the fold: because she was a goddamn tweaker who couldn't be trusted to stay clean (from drugs, or from the bug). But Keisha's used to it now.

It's a shitty thing to be used to.

Keisha looks back. Helena is still holding the food and she's watching Feather blink herself into something sort of like alert. Slowly, shaking, she sits up against the wall, and Keisha hears a small gasp – the first really surprised reaction she's heard from Helena all evening.

It's the belly, Keisha knows. She's gotta be seven months in by now.

Helena crabwalks a little closer. She opens the Styrofoam and sets it in Feather's lap, plastic fork stabbed upright into a sausage link.

"Feather?" Helena says, glancing at Keisha for confirmation. Keisha nods. "Feather, you must eat something."

But Feather just stares at her like she's staring through her and doesn't move.

"I told you, she's in a bad way," Keisha says. "If we leave the food she'll eat it eventually, or, I mean, _somebody_ will—"

But Helena has scooped a mouthful of scrambled eggs onto the fork and she's offering it to Feather's lips as though she's feeding a toddler or something. Feather blinks twice, slowly, and then opens her mouth.

And damn if Helena doesn't feed the girl the whole meal like that, while Keisha sits there, watching, fingers tangled in Feather's.

After, Feather tucks her knees up and rolls back down onto her side with a drawn-out sigh.

"We must get her to a hospital," Helena says. "For her own sake and for the baby's."

Keisha shakes her head and can't help but laugh, hard, like someone beat it out of her. "She been, like, twice since she got pregnant. They clean her up okay but as soon as she gets out she's back to the same thing. It's not like the state pays for halfway houses."

 Helena inhales sharply and pulls her fingers through her hair. "How much do they cost, these halfway houses?"

Keisha shrugs. "I dunno. A lot. And the treatment programs cost even more."

The breath that escapes Helena's lungs seems like it's got a purpose or something, like it's hard and firm. "I'm going to look into it," she says.

 

///

 

Keisha's a little disappointed when Helena invites her back to her hotel, because she'd really let herself think that maybe that wasn’t where this evening was going. 

They take a cab across the bridge into Manhattan without talking. It's after 3 am when Helena leads her into a chain hotel. They stop at the desk and Helena asks for a disposable toothbrush and a razor and the guy working there eyes Keisha like she's a sewer rat, and then eyes Helena like she's almost as bad. Keisha's used to it, but she's surprised that Helena doesn't flinch.

There are posters everywhere for Fashion Week and Keisha stares at the one in the elevator, with the tall, thin model and the beautiful red dress.

"I'm clean, you know," Keisha says, because she realizes that she wants this woman to know this. She wants Helena to think well of her and it's the first time in awhile that she gave a damn about what anybody thought about her outside of work stuff. "Things get bad sometimes, but I always knew if I was going do this job I was going to spend my money on hormones and rent and maybe surgery one day, not meth." She swallows and looks down.

It's a bit of a white lie. Sometimes she's given Feather money for meth, because if there's anything worse than seeing her as fucked up as she was tonight, it's seeing her when she's withdrawing.

The hotel room has two big beds in it. Keisha walks to the middle of the floor, then turns and faces Helena and shrugs off her jacket. Keisha's slipping her fingers under the hem of her own shirt, about to pull it off when Helena steps close, puts her fingers on Keisha's wrists and stops her.

"For goodness' sake, darling, none of that," she says. She walks to the closet and pulls out one of the rough hotel bathrobes and offers it to Keisha with one hand, the toothbrush and razor in the other.

"I'd loan you some pyjamas but I doubt any of mine would fit you, you're so very tall," she says. She tilts her head toward the bathroom. "There's toothpaste in there, and soap, and of course plenty of towels if you wish to bathe. You can have the bed closest the door."

When Keisha comes out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, the room is dark and Helena is asleep.

 _Weirdest trick ever_ , Keisha thinks, but she's not complaining as she slides into the other bed and sinks into the pillows.

Then, out of nowhere, Helena's voice: "I assume 'Feather' is a nickname."

"Yeah," Keisha says. "Her name's Heather, really."

"Why do you call her that, then?"

Keisha laughs, because it's kind of a morbid story, really. "'Cause birds need feathers to fly, but feathers can't fly on their own. And she's never been real good at living the difference between flying and falling, know what I mean?"

"I do," Helena says, and Keisha hadn't really meant it as a question but the way Helena answers is real honest.

"Goodnight, Keisha," Helena says.

"Goodnight."

 

///

 

When Keisha wakes up she hears the shower running. She blinks twice at the clock before she registers it's one o'clock in the afternoon.

 _Damn_ , she thinks, as she stretches.

Beside the clock there's a bag from Starbucks with her name written on the side in fancy-looking letters. Inside there's a coffee—not hot anymore, but warm is good enough—and a fruit cup and a glazed donut.

She's finished eating and is sipping the coffee, sitting in the chair by the window, when Helena comes out of the bathroom. She looks like she stepped out of another time, or something, with these loose-fitting pants and that tight-fitting vest.

"Good," she says, "you found your breakfast."

"Yeah," Keisha says. "Thanks."

Helena sits in the other chair, across the table. "I was supposed to work today," she says. "Over at the Fashion Week event. But given the hour it seems silly to start now."

Keisha just looks at her, under a cocked eyebrow, as she sips her coffee.

"It's been a terribly long time since I last visited New York City," Helena continues. "So very much has changed. I wondered if perhaps I could trouble you for your company for some time longer, as a tour guide?"

 _Weirdest trick ever_ , Keisha thinks _again_ , but she shrugs, and nods. "You're the boss, long as you're paying," she says.

Helena's smile slips for just a tiny second but then it comes back, wider, maybe a little more forced. "Of course, darling," she says.

So Keisha plays tour guide for the afternoon. They ride a bus tour, wander around Times Square and Greenwich Village. Helena asks about the opera but Keisha says, honestly, that she doesn't know a thing about it.

At the end of the day Helena presses five crisp hundred-dollar bills into Keisha's palm, and Keisha's eyes are already about to fall out of her head when Helena pulls out two more twenties and hands them over, too.

"The extra's for your taxi home," she says. Then she reaches into her inside jacket pocket and pulls out a pen, and then fishes an old receipt out of her wallet.

"Here," she says, as she scribbles something on the back of the receipt. "My phone number. Please don't hesitate to call if you need anything. And keep me abreast of how your friend is doing. Contact me in one month's time either way. If I can help her in any significant way, I should know by then."

"Okay," Keisha says, and tucks the paper in the inside pocket of her purse. "So, I'll be seeing you?" she says as she climbs into the taxi.

Helena smiles quietly. "I certainly hope so, darling."

 

///

 

A little over two weeks later, Helena is sitting in the back seat of a taxi beside Claudia in Tamalpais, on their way to the energy drink factory. Myka is sitting in the front seat. Myka glances up at the rearview mirror and smiles to see H.G. and Claudia leaning together over H.G.'s grappler.

"The cable is hollow," H.G. is saying, "so that the wire that triggers the claw can pass through. When you pull the trigger here, the first click launches the grappler, the second opens the claw, and the third releases and retracts the whole thing."

"This is so badass," Claudia gushes. "And it's all powered with just a high-tensile spring?"

H.G. just cocks her eyebrow at that, and nods.

"Hey, H.G.?" Myka asks.

"Yes?" When she looks up, meeting Myka's eye in the rear-view, her eyebrow is still cocked and the edge of her lip still curled and Myka swallows against a surprising tug, deep in her gut.

"Where—um, where did you get that grappler, anyway? Was it in your house in London, or is this a new one you built?"

H.G. smiles wider, now. "Come, Myka. A lady must have her secrets."

Now it's Myka's turn to cock her eyebrow. "Saying things like that doesn't help in the trust department, if that's really what you're after."

"Convincing you both is only the first step," H.G. says, shrugging. "I need something to keep for the regents."

Myka bites her lips and squints into the mirror, then she shakes her head, bemused, and looks down. "You really don't want to do this the easy way, do you?"

H.G. smirks and leans forward, propping herself against the back of Myka's seat. She pauses there and waits, until Myka twists around and looks her in the eye. "Never," she says.

Myka rolls her eyes.

 

///

 

They're walking into the factory when Myka hears H.G.'s phone beep. H.G. pulls it from her inside pocket and reads the text message; her hand comes up to cover her mouth and her eyebrows come together ever so briefly. 

"Everything okay?" Myka asks.

"I—yes. May I ask you a question?" H.G. asks. For the first time, Myka feels she can glimpse through the brash bravado and into something deeper. H.G. seems somehow… small.

"Sure," Myka says.

"Do the letters 'O' and 'D' mean anything in particular in today's parlance?"

"What, like, together? Like, 'to O.D.'?"

H.G. nods, and swallows.

"Yeah," Myka says, "it's slang, stands for overdose. Usually people use it to talk about drug overdoses."

"Death from the overconsumption of harmful, addictive substances," H.G. says, and despite the unpleasant subject matter Myka can't help but love that H.G. has casually strung together an eight-word sentence that includes three words of three or more syllables.

"People can sometimes overdose without dying if you get them to the hospital fast enough. Why?"

"No particular reason," she says, and Myka can tell it's for a very particular reason, though she has no idea what that may be.

 

///

 

Claudia is up to her armpits in an ice bath and Myka doesn't know whether she should be focusing on her or on H.G., who's over at the lab table yelling loudly at Mahoney about how neutralizing the acid won't work, it's too late for that, they need to _denature the protein_ that's been produced in Claudia's body _from_ those amino acids, and have their been _no_ advances in science since her heyday in these fields!

Myka decides that she can't contribute to that conversation and that H.G. seems to have everything under control. So she turns back to Claudia, leans down, pushes sweaty hair back from her forehead.

"Just hang on," she says, "just hang on a little longer."

Claudia is shaking from the cold of the ice but when Myka feels her breath against her forearm it's _hot_ , steaming hot, this-can't-be-good-for-her-organs hot.

"It's been a long time since anyone sat with me when I was sick," Claudia says, and she tries to smile, and Myka wants to say _hush_ , wants to say _you don't have to try so hard to be tough_ , wants to say _me too_. But she doesn't. She just smiles and grabs a handful of ice and presses it to Claudia's forehead.

"Myka," Claudia says quietly, her voice shaking. She licks her cracked lips.

"Yeah?" Myka says.

"If this happens I just want you to know—and tell Artie, and Pete, and Mrs. Frederic, and—and Leena that I said thank you for giving me a shot. Nobody ever gave me a shot before you guys, and—"

"Shh," Myka murmurs. She feels tears welling up in her eyes because she's realizing, all of a sudden realizing how much she and Claudia are alike despite how different they are, going through life like they've always got something to prove. "Hush," she says again. "There are some very smart people over there working on getting you fixed, and if they fail I'm going to shoot both of them so they're very highly motivated."

"I'd be quite motivated regardless of the threat of a bullet, darling," says H.G., and Myka has forgotten, for a moment, that the others are within earshot.

H.G. is yelling at Mahoney again, now. Something about hydrochloric acid that Myka can't pretend to understand, but she has an idea and takes advantage of the distraction to lean closer to Claudia, who probably wouldn't mind a distraction herself. 

"Claud," she says, "if I wanted you to read somebody's text message, once this is all done, what would you need to be able to do it?"

"A—a message that was already sent? Or in realtime as they're being sent and received?"

"One that was already sent."

Claudia licks her lips, then closes her mouth to let it re-salivate against the heat. "Just the phone number."

"Okay." Myka looks up. H.G. and Mahoney have their heads together over the centrifuge, which is conveniently making a loud whirring noise, so she sits back in her chair and fumbles for the pocket of H.G.'s jacket and pulls out her phone. It's a basic phone, probably a disposable prepaid. She opens it, finds the text messaging function, and sends a blank text to her own number. Immediately she feels her pocket buzz.

The next day, when they're back in South Dakota, Myka pulls H.G.'s number from her text message records and Claudia takes no time to track it. Almost immediately, she identifies the text she'd been wondering about:

 _Feather is dead. OD. Found her this AM._ _–K._

That night, Myka gets a text message to her own phone from the same number:

_You needn't have taken my phone number surreptitiously, Agent Bering. Had you asked, I'd have given it gladly._

Myka stares, dumbfounded, at the text. She knew, of course, that Wells would have her number since Myka had entered it to send the text, but she hadn't anticipated that the Victorian woman would have known how to interpret what Myka had done.

She's still staring, contemplating the risks and benefits of this new situation and whether she should tell Artie, when her phone buzzes again:

_How are you this evening? How is young Claudia recovering from her ordeal?_

Myka stares, and smiles, and shrugs inwardly to herself.

 _We're both fine_ , she types back. _How are you?_

And so it begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our ladies will be getting more screen-time together from here on out. This is also the height of the OC action as it's currently planned; we're mostly in canon characters from here on out.


	4. A Vision of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Who did this to you?" she asks, soft and angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally say this kind of thing because it feels like pandering, but: thanks to everyone who's taken the time to drop me a line and say what you think on this thing. I am, up to this point, proudest of it out of all my fics, but my timing sucks in that the show is kind of imploding and it seems things are thinning out a little around here as a result. While I have every intention of finishing this story I'm a little worried it'll be crickets around here by the time I get there, so thanks to those of you who stick it out.
> 
> A note re. Jack the Ripper: I needed some kind of serial criminal to advance the plot and stole the idea of Jack the Ripper from the S5 promos since it's at exactly the right era. But I haven't seen the S5 episode in which he appears, so my use of him here is all me; don't try to make my use of him make sense with reference to W13 canon, because it won't. I've attempted to be somewhat historically accurate in terms of the murders attributed to him and their timeline, but of course I've spiffed things up in a way that hints toward artifact-related nastiness.
> 
> The W12 caretaker McGivens is hermitstull's creation from her Warehouse 12 fics (they're in her collection "The Vodka Made Me Do It," chapters 30, 40, 53, 54, 62, 69 and 71; GO READ if you haven't, because they're amazing).
> 
> Shout-out to Manhattanite for giving me a little help with the geography of Queens.
> 
> TW: A character is suicidal at one point in this chapter. There is also one use of a transphobic slur.

Nurse Valerie's stomach ties itself in knots over the behaviour of Helena Wells.

Her tantrums were as bad as ever—worse, even—in the days immediately following the confrontation in Dr. Austin's office. But they can't give her laudanum, with the pregnancy, so they resort to the older methods, the kind of methods usually reserved for far more dangerous and reactive patients than Miss Wells is.

When they can, they resort to a straight-jacket. It's the most humane option, after all; she can move around, stand and sit as she chooses, but without the ability to harm anyone else or herself.

But then sometimes, sometimes she becomes so upset that the straight-jacket will not suffice; she throws herself at anyone who comes near, or at the furniture if there is any, and screams at them to untie her. Those are the days when they strap her to a gurney. She howls until she's hoarse, hauling against the restraints until her screams turn into tears.

Sometimes she exhausts herself enough to fall asleep.

On one such day, Nurse Valerie walks into the room, even though policy says she shouldn't do such a thing without a guard. But young Miss Wells is sleeping and in those moments Valerie notices how _young_ she truly is, at twenty-three. Valerie remembers being twenty-three and thinking her growing was finished, she understands, now, that growing never finishes, not if you don't want it to.  
  
She looks at Miss Wells and sees a young woman who comforted old Tommy about a dashed bird's nest.

After a week or two of this, Miss Wells learns where her tantrums and outbursts will put her. She adjusts, like the knob on a gas lamp turned down to the barest glow. Dr. Austin comments on her remarkable progress, but Valerie cannot help but lament the loss of her energy, her joie-de-vivre. She has a hard time watching the shadow of Helena Wells pace quietly about the common room and understanding that outline, that bare minimum, as recovery.

 

///

 

Charles has spent very little of his adult life in the company of pregnant women prior to Helena. He's heard stories, though, of how they may be moody or temperamental but through that they glow, they bask in the grandeur of their body's majestic endeavor.

He can't help but notice that he sees none of that in Helena. If anything, he sees the opposite. She, who has always been so mercurial in virtually all respects, has become grey, dull. When he visits, they walk in the garden, or sit in the common room, and speak of pleasantries, the weather. She persists with the odd tics, the rolling of the shoulders, the rubbing of the wrists, but those seem to dwindle off in the later months.

Sometimes he tries to engage her by discussing his studies at university, which have always fascinated her before. But now, when he brings them up, she stops him with a shake of her head or a wave of her hand and says "Not now, Charles. Thank you."

Visiting her becomes so dreadfully boring.

"She's making wonderful progress," Dr. Austin says, and Charles wonders how this can possibly be progress when Helena was clearly so much happier when she was "ill."

"Have you found a home for the baby?" she asks, every visit. And every visit, he is forced to say that no, he has not, though he's looking.

And he does look. He sends letters to cousins who have families. He reaches out to childhood friends. Eventually, in desperation, he writes his father. His father responds by telegram, one word: "never."

"I am sorry to have burdened you with this, Charles," Helena says, but her voice is so empty, so dispassionate, that he knows not how to interpret her words. She has never been one to apologize without sarcasm, but now, he hears not even that.

"I am not sorry for her, though," Helena says, curling her hands over her stomach.

"Her?" Charles says.

Helena shrugs slowly. "Intuition." She smiles wistfully down at her own body, pressing against the dress that wasn't cut for pregnancy. "While she is with me, I am never alone."

She composes stories for the baby and sometimes, on sunny days, she tells them to him, asks him to write them down for her. She's as marvelous at telling stories as she is at virtually everything else, so of course he transcribes them and keeps them in a folio on his bookcase.

(Well, not all on his bookcase. He's taken three of them, his favorites, and sent them to various magazines to see if they'll publish them. He's waiting for responses.)

One day, he sees her smile, a hint of the old Helena pushing through the surface. They are walking in the garden and she stops, brings her palms to her swollen belly and says, "the baby is moving." She grins, then, widely, first down, to herself, and then over at Charles. "The baby's moving!" she says again, and he's so relieved to see her smile that he can't help but smile back.

Three more visits pass and Charles sees no hint of that light again.

"If she remains this calm in the weeks following the delivery of the baby, we may be able to look into releasing her. She may rehabilitate after all," Dr. Austin says.

"Are you quite all right?" Charles whispers to her, one day, in the corner of the common room where nobody can hear.

She smiles a little, just with her lips, and then shrugs one shoulder. "I suppose," she says, and that's when Charles knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that she is not. And he knows not what to do, because this version of his sister might finally be released from Bethlem, but she is empty as a frame without a picture, a hat without a head.

 

///

 

Charles looks horrid when Wooley arrives at The Morlock's Arms that night. There's an empty pint glass in front of him and a half-empty one beside it, and he's slumped over the bar, hair in disarray. That's how Wooley knows there's something _really_ wrong: Charles is forever preening, hoping to catch the eye of this or that young lady, and will never be seen with a hair out of place. 

Wooley wonders, briefly, if he should turn around and leave, because the day's been terrible for him, too, and perhaps they wouldn't make good company for one another.

But he's here, and he wants a pint, and misery loves company, surely.

"Rough day?" Wooley asks as he pulls up the neighboring barstool.

"The most recent among many," Charles mutters, before taking another long drink.

"Care to tell me about it?" Wooley asks.

Charles huffs out a breath of air. "I'd rather hear what's new in your life."

"Ugh," Wooley groans. He sets his hat on the bar-top and orders his pint from the bartender. "Jack the Ripper has come out of retirement," he says. "Or at least it looks that way. There's another case from a few months ago that might be his work, too. We're revisiting it now, in retrospect."

Wooley's mind retains the most recent crime scene more vividly than any photograph or drawing, not because his memory is terribly remarkable, but because some images burn themselves into one's mind with the fire and noise of a brand on the flank of a cow. He's seen the earlier ones, too, that were in every respect more gruesome – so gruesome that he'd been able to dissociate himself, to an extent. To operate as though the mutilated bodies were just that, and had never been people.

(He'd felt guilty about that, when he'd first realized he was doing it. But his sergeant had explained that it was a good thing to do, that it made it possible to keep doing the job without driving himself to Bedlam with the horror of it.)

But this latest woman had been all but intact. The off-centre gash in her neck had been her only visible wound, but the blood—the _blood_ —so much of it, everywhere, slicked across the body like oil. And there was no detachment. There was no pretending this was just a murder without a victim, that this wasn't a _person_ lying there.

(And he needn't reference the words he'd heard his superiors use to describe these women. Women of the night, they were, but still someone's daughter, someone's mother, and as deserving of justice and dignity as any other woman on the street.)

Wooley blinks for a moment and realizes he's been silent, staring into nothing. Charles is staring at him, blearily, a third pint glass sweating into his palm.

"Wooley," Charles says. "Wooley." He must not have eaten much today, for two pints to affect him like this.

Wooley pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yes, Charles?"

"Ihaveanidea," he says, his upper body tipping toward Wooley, his elbow sprawled across the bar-top. But his eyes, for the first time this evening, are bright.

"Do you?" Wooley says.

Charles nods. "D'you remember… d'you remember when I told you about that Sherlock Holmes book? And you said you wanted to hire a genius consulting detective to help you find the Ripper." He sits up and eyes Wolcott expectantly over the rim of his glass as he takes another drink.

Wooley rolls his eyes. "Yes. But Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist."

"You're right," Charles says, reaching forward and poking Wolcott's knee with a resolute index finger. "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional." Poke. "Character." Poke.

"Yes, Charles." Wolcott waves to the bartender; his friend clearly needs a glass of water.

"What if I toldya I knew a real-life, bona-fide, Sherlock Holmesian genius?"

Wolcott's running out of patience for this. He picks up his glass and swallows a gulp of beer, then another. He'll see Charles again some other, more sober day.

"No!" Charles says. "No. I see what you're doing. Put your glass down."

"Charles—"

"No, see, when you say that, you sound just like her. _Exactly_ like her, and you've never even met."

"You're drunk, Charles," Wooley says. "Whatever this conversation is, it can wait for another day."

Charles straightens up in his chair, both hands braced on the edge of the bar. He looks at his half-empty pint glass and pushes it away. "You're right," he says, "I'm drunk. But that doesn't make me an ignoramus." He waves down the bartender and asks for a glass of water. "There is someone very dear to me who needs help," he says, his voice measured, calculated, pushing through the dull edges of the alcohol. "She needs help and I promise, she can help you. So sit down and give me the chance to convince you, at least 'till you get to the bottom of your pint. But _no rushing_." He thrusts an accusatory finger at Wooley's shoulder.

Wooley slouches forward toward his drink and a heavy breath escapes. "All right," he says. "Out with it."

Charles smiles. There's water in front of him now and he drinks the whole pint glass full and then thrusts it toward the bartender for a refill. "All right, Wooley," he says, "let me tell you about my sister."

 

///

 

Charles notifies the staff at Bethlem by telegram that he will be visiting with Detective Constable Wolcott for a consultation with Helena. He asks them to notify her. He takes a day's leave from his mind-numbing coursework for the occasion.

When they arrive, Helena looks a little more like she used to. Her hair is up in its chignon for the first time in months, and while the dress tugs awkwardly over her stomach, she carries herself tall and square. She shakes Wolcott's hand in greeting as a man would, and Charles is mortified but Wooley merely smiles.

The hospital has granted them access to an examining room and, after much haranguing between Dr. Austin and Wolcott, has consented not to have a guard in the room with them.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Helena asks as she settles onto a chair opposite Wolcott's. Charles sits between them.

Wolcott clears his throat. "Well," he says. Then he coughs. "Your brother has led me to believe you have certain… remarkable talents?"

Helena, of course, arches an eyebrow at him. "I'm a woman of many talents, Detective Constable Wolcott," she says, "but I'm afraid I can't tell you whether I can help you unless you tell me what the problem is."

Wolcott bends down and pulls a folder from his satchel, where it rests by his feet. He sets it on the table.

"I presume you've heard of the serial killer we call 'Jack the Ripper'?"

 

///

 

On the cab ride back to South Kensington, Wooley can barely contain himself.  He wants to detour the cab to stop by his supervisor's house immediately. He wants to go directly to the Scotland Yard office and wait there eagerly until morning.

"She's a genius, your sister," he says, over and over. "And I haven't the foggiest what to make of her idea but despite their absurdity they make more sense than anything else I've seen up to this point."

When presented with the crime scene photographs and investigators' notes, Helena had swallowed hard, several times, and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Helena," Charles had said.

"Are you quite all right, Miss Wells? I do apologize for the graphic nature of the images," Wolcott said.

Helena was silent for a long moment, long enough that Wolcott, apparently deciding that the images must be too graphic, leaned forward to shuffle them back into the folder.

Helena's hand shot forward of its own volition and clapped the papers back to the tabletop. "No," she said. She swallowed once more and leaned forward, sliding the photos apart over the tabletop and beginning to leaf through the paperwork. "Give me a few minutes to look this through, and then I want you to tell me everything you know that doesn't appear in these files."

They talked for an hour. They talked for another hour. Charles lost interest after thirty minutes. He found himself fighting to stay awake, his head falling forward against his chest, again and again.

"This is positively bizarre," Helena said. "I'll tell you what I think. I think Miss McKenzie was not murdered by the same person who murdered the first five."

"I agree," Wolcott said. "But to be frank, I'm not sure why I feel that way."

"Look at the wounds here—"she pointed to one photograph—"and here," she pointed to another. "Look at the angle of the cuts and where the weight has been applied. The first five women were murdered by a right-handed man and the second by a left-handed man."

Charles barely contained his chuckle at the way Wolcott's eyebrows leaped into his hairline and he practically threw himself across the table. _He'll be buying my pints for a month_ , he thought.

"You're right," Wolcott said. "You're absolutely bloody right—sorry—and nobody ever noticed that."

But Helena was still puzzled, Charles could tell. She was shaking her head like she would when they were children and she was working through a difficult mathematics equation in her head. 

"I assume tissue samples were taken and analyzed from each of the victims?" she said.

"Of course," Wolcott replied.

"No traces of any toxins, I assume?"

"None."

"So very strange," Helena said quietly, almost to herself. She scratched absently at her temple with one fingernail.

Charles sat up at this. He hadn't been paying much attention but he recognized her air, the one that said she had a thought she thought unworthy of sharing. "What is it, Helena?" he asked.

She shrugged, then pulled three of the photographs closer to her. "Not all of the pictures show the same level of detail," she said, "but all three of these women have these pale bumps on their skin, see? This one at her jaw, that one at her elbow, and that one on the back of her hand."

Wolcott looked and shrugged. "Indeed. Warts, I suppose. Women in their profession are tragically prone to…"

But Helena was shaking her head. "Not warts. Warts have a different texture to their surface and they tend to grow in clusters. These bumps are evenly-spaced. I read a study a few years ago… this looks like the skin irritation that can arise from arsenic poisoning. But if the bodies contained arsenic, it would have shown up in the testing."

Helena sat up straighter, then, and pressed her fingertips to her eyes. "It's as though something's inspiring an arsenic-like reaction in these different victims with different murderers, without leaving any kind of chemical evidence. Which is completely implausible, of course."

She leaned forward and began to gather the paperwork back into the file. Wolcott, brow furrowed, leaned forward to do the same.

"I'm sorry, Constable Wolcott," she said as she watched him slide the folder back into his bag. "I've given you nothing of use. Were I the investigator, I would attempt to discover what might have connected these different murderers that would have inspired these strange symptoms, but there's barely a thing to go on."

But Wolcott was smiling broadly, too broadly for a man who'd just spent hours poring over gruesome images of murder victims, Charles thought.

"On the contrary, Miss Wells," he said, "you've been extraordinarily helpful. Extraordinarily."

She smiled at him and shrugged, and Charles noticed her eyes weren't as dull as they'd been when he and Wolcott had arrived.

Now, sitting in the cab, Wolcott turns more fully to face Charles alongside him on the bench. Charles is tired, and Charles is bored, and while he appreciates the good the visit may have done for both Wolcott and Helena, he is keen to be allowed to sit in _silence_ for a few moments.

But Wolcott won't have it. "What's she in Bedlam for, anyway?"

Charles huffs. "She's an invert," he says. "Perverting the minds and bodies of innocent young women, so my father said."

Wolcott furrows his brow at that. "But then how… how could she become… the baby?"

Charles rolls his eyes. "Damned if I know. She won't tell me."

Wolcott's energy tempers at this, much to Charles' relief. Charles settles against the opposite side of the bench and closes his eyes. The sound of the horses' hooves is soothing when he listens to it.

"You want her released," Wolcott says.

Charles grunts instead of saying "yes."

Wolcott's head tips forward, empathetic. "I don't have that kind of authority."

Charles shrugs. "You might, one day."

 

///

 

The following day, Wooley presents his new findings to his sergeant, who glances over the paperwork and sets it aside with a brief comment of "good work, Constable."

"But sir, different people are committing murders with the same oddities connecting them. Don't you think that's—"

"I said _good work_ , Constable," the sergeant interrupts. "Back to your desk with you."

Wooley is annoyed. Infuriated, really. But he's never been one to disrespect authority quite so explicitly, so he takes his frustration back to his desk with him.

That night, Wooley returns to his flat before venturing out for his nightly pint. He deposits his satchel by the foot of his bed and turns to fetch the meal left for him by his landlady and nearly leaps fifteen feet in the air because _there's a man in the middle of the room_.

Wooley glances at the door to his room. It's still locked.

"Detective Constable Wolcott," the man says.

Wolcott can only blink. "Er—yes, sir?" he says, when he remembers to speak.

"Excellent work on the Ripper case," the man says.

"What are you doing in my room?" Wolcott asks, growing firmer now, a little more stable on his feet as he's recovered from the surprise.

The stranger takes a step forward, and then another. The floorboards creak loudly in the still room. "My name is McGivens," the man says, "and I'm here to offer you an invitation to endless wonder."

 

///

  

Charles has taken Wooley to visit Helena in Bethlem. Wooley seemed to benefit from it greatly, or at least to enjoy the conversation.

And the Wooley disappears.

A week passes, and Wooley never appears for their nightly pints at the Morlock's Arms.

Charles goes to visit Helena again. She's worse than he's ever seen her. Her braid is disheveled, her eyes dark and sunken. She is nearly silent as they stroll quietly through the garden on a day of glistening sunshine.

Her hand drifts up to pat a stray hair into place, and gravity pulls down on her sleeve. Charles' hand darts out of its own accord and grasps her forearm, pulling it out between them, so the deep shades of her bruised wrist twitches beneath their gazes.

"What happened, Helena?" Charles asks. But Helena merely tugs her hand away and pulls her sleeve down over her wrist. She shakes her head and looks down.

"Please don't bring your friend here again," she says, just before he leaves to return to South Kensington.

Charles pauses. "You seemed to enjoy him," he says.

Helena is tugging at her sleeves, fiddling with the buttons that keep them closed at the cuff. "He seems lovely," she says, "but I can't. . . the turning myself on again, and then having to remember how to shut off. I can't do it again."

Another week passes. Wooley does not appear at the Morlock's Arms. Charles resents him. No: Charles is coming to despise him, for taking sight of his family's greatest weakness and choosing to flee under its weight.

Charles' studies are suffering. His tutor has cautioned him regarding the potential repercussions of his declining performance.

Charles hates his studies, anyway.

He continues to go to the pub, alone. It is a small thing he can control in a life that feels like a carnival ride gone off its hinges.

And then, one evening Wooley shows up, out of nowhere. Behind him is an Indian man, older, shorter, balding, bearded.

"Charles!" Wolcott says, smiling, as he weaves his way through the tables, the older man following behind him.

Charles can bring himself to respond with naught more than a grunt.

"Oh, don't be like that, old chap," Wooley says, clapping him on the shoulder. "I've been transferred to a new division. I'm sorry I couldn't come to tell you."

"Well, bully for you," Charles says.

"Bully for me, indeed," Wolcott replies, and he's grinning, positively glowing. "Come sit at a table with us, over by the back. This is my new supervisor, Mr. Chaturanga. And we have a proposition to discuss regarding your sister."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Myka feels weird about these texts she gets from H.G.

They don't come often, fortunately, and she doesn't always respond to them. When she does, her answers are always inoffensive. She doesn't divulge any information about where she is or what she's doing. Most of the questions she answers have to do with modern life and the like: "What's the difference between a credit card and a debit card?" and "What exactly is the significance of the word 'hashtag'?".

One morning she wakes to two texts:

"Please tell me that science and medicine have caught up in knowledge to what women have always known about the nature of their monthly visitor"

"and have concurrently devised better materials for the management thereof."

Myka guffaws, still blinking awake in her bed, and responds with a series of messages that explain pads, tampons, Motrin, and where to find them.

They're all inoffensive questions and she provides inoffensive answers. And she doesn't tell Artie about it.

It's not that she trusts the woman. Far from it. It's… curiosity. And maybe a little, just a little bit, of hero worship, because _H. G. Wells_ is writing _words_ that are intended for _her_.

She looks forward to those texts even though she tries not to encourage them, these minuscule micro-treatises from her favorite author, but she finds herself needing to school her features when they come in, just like she did when she started dating Sam and they were both worried about what the rest of the team would think.

Her pocket buzzes. She pulls out her phone, swipes it awake and opens the message. There's a pull at the inside of her cheeks. A tug, like the pull of a grappler.

There's a post-it note tucked inside the front cover of her copy of _The Time Machine_.

 

///

 

Joey spots Keisha's fuckin' narc a mile away, walking down his sidewalk like it's _her_ fuckin' sidewalk.

"Hey," he says, when she gets close. "You just keep walking, bitch."

So of course the fuckin' narc stops.

"I really don't see the need for such language, young man."

"Yeah, whatever," Joey sniffs. "Keep steppin."

"I'm looking for Keisha."

"I bet you are."

The bitch stops and stands there, arms crossed like a pissed-off schoolteacher.

"Keisha," she says.

Joey shrugs, then turns to go talk to Dawn who looks like she's about to start fuckin' withdrawing right there on the curb—

and something grabs his wrist and suddenly Joey's face-down on his own damn sidewalk with his wrist pinned to his back and this fuckin narc is kneeling on his back and he's just down, like some kind of damn pussy.

"Oh, bitch, you have no idea what you just did," he says, because he's not an idiot. He carries a gun, and she's kneeling on his back but he's got one hand free—

And, nope, she's got the gun now, took it right outta the back of his pants.

"There's a fee for that kinda touching around here," he says into the concrete.

"Where. Is. Keisha," the woman asks.

"Fuck off."

Then there's a click and Joey knows she's just flipped the safety off on his Glock, and then, yup, there it is, cold muzzle against the side of his jaw. Joey groans.

"Keisha," she says.

"I ain't her fuckin' keeper."

"I'm rapidly losing my patience with you, young man." She cocks the gun and he feels her lean down, close to him, her lips almost touching his ear. "I don't require a gun to kill you, but if you do not answer my question truthfully the next time I ask it, I _will_ shoot you just for the satisfaction of watching the stain grow through this lovely blond hair of yours. So, one last time: Where. Is. Keisha."

And Joey's met his share of psychos in his life but this one takes the cake and he's not gonna fuck with that.

"I don't fucking know, man," he says. "Goddamn tranny bitch. After that tweaker buddy of hers kicked it, she was all down and shit, and nobody wants to hire a streetwalker who looks like someone just shot her dog, so I told her to step off. She use to have a place, like, six blocks that way." He points with his chin, as best he can, under the gun.

And the bitch gets off him. She steps back and he stands up, slow. His girls are just standing there, twenty feet away, watching.

"You got something to say?" he says, stepping toward them. Jewel shakes her head "no," Dawn just turns away, everybody else just looks down and tries to fake like they weren't watching in the first place.

But the fucking narc bitch still has _his_ goddamn gun trained on him.

"Where does she live?"

Joey shrugs. "Sutphin and 115th, down that way. Second floor. I don't know which apartment, though."

It satisfies her. He watches as she flips the safety back on and then—

"Fuck that, man! That's my gun!"

She's tucking it in the back of her own pants.

"Is it?" she asks. "And I assume you have the paperwork to prove it."

"Fuck you."

"You're quite fond of that word. It's unbecoming a gentleman."

"Fuck you," he repeats.

"I'd rather not." She's looking down the road toward Keisha's place, but now she looks back at him and damn if the look she's giving him isn't scarier than the feeling of the damn gun in his face.

"I have a particular dislike for individuals who abuse the bodies and intentions of young women," she says. "A person's choice of profession is her own and I have no moral concerns with the trade plied on this corner, but if I find that you have laid a hand on anyone, or sought to intimidate anyone into working in any capacity against her wishes, I will find you, and I will kill you, perhaps with your own pistol."

Joey straightens his shirt and lifts his hat to pull his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, man, whatever."

She slides her eyes away from him and now she's looking at his girls, over his shoulder. He's not going to look back to check on them. Not when she's got his gun. So he just watches her watching them, sees her nod. Then she turns away and starts walking.

He lets out a long breath. "Who the fuck says 'pistol,'" he says to himself. "Seriously."

 

///

 

When Keisha gets home in the morning she's not expecting to find Helena sitting at her kitchen table.

Keisha's standing in her kitchen doorway. Helena's got a glass of water and her legs crossed at the knee and she's just sitting there like she owns the room.

"Who let you in?" Keisha asks. "Chandra? Alex?"

"Alex, I believe," Helena says. "She's asleep. "

Keisha rolls her eyes. "What'd you pay her? Fifty? A hundred?"

"Seventy-five," Helena says, and shrugs. "Per her request, I've touched nothing but this glass of water and the chair I'm sitting in."

Keisha tips her head back, annoyed, and rolls her neck to one side, then the other. She realizes her mistake a moment too late; Helena is on her feet and holding Keisha's chin like she's a kid, turning her face to the side.

"Who did this to you?" she asks, soft and angry.

"Oh, come off it," Keisha says. She shoves Helena's hand out of the way and crosses the room to the freezer. With a Ziploc of ice pressed against her swollen jaw, she drops gracelessly into the other chair. Helena sits back down in the chair where she'd been sitting before.

"Somebody hurt you," Helena says.

"Shit happens," Keisha replies.

"I looked for you on your corner. You weren't there. I haven't heard from you in ages."

Keisha sits up straighter. "Before, I just thought you were weird. Now I think you're a fucking stalker."

Helena is quiet now.  They are sitting on opposite sides of the small table, both with their back to the wall, so they don’t have to look at one another. Keisha glances over and Helena is looking down, now, at her hands in her lap. She's made Helena feel bad and for a second she feels bad about it. But Helena had no right to show up at her house like this. She's off her tits if she thinks that overpaying for a weird, buddy-buddy night and day is supposed to make them _friends_.

But she relents a little anyway. "Look," Keisha says, "Things stopped working with Joey. I work with a different crew now. Dude's a little rougher than Joey and sometimes shit like this happens. It's okay. I been taking care of myself for two years. I got things under control."

Helena looks up and stares straight ahead like she's got x-ray vision through the wall over the kitchen sink. She pulls her fingers through her hair and it falls back to exactly the right place.

"I'd like to see you safe," she says. "I should have access to more money soon. What can I do to see you safe?"

And Keisha laughs, just once, harsh and thin. "I've heard that one before, from you."

Keisha knows she hurt her that time. She adjusts the ice pack against her face and doesn't look over.

Silence sits with them for a long moment.

"I’m sorry I couldn't arrange things quickly enough," Helena says. "I tried. I'd like to try again."

And Keisha's angry now because this is _stupid_ , this is _so fucked up_ , and who the hell does this woman think she is?

"Look, Helena," Keisha says. "This ain't my first rodeo. I met your type before, the ones who wanna be the great white hope that saves the little Black hooker. Only difference is, most of them want to 'save' me because they want to fuck me, or because they're religious types. You, you're trying to use me to fix something broken in yourself."

"And if I am?" Helena interrupts, growling. "Do you _like_ this life? Working for a man who hits you?"

"What're _you_ gonna do, Helena?" Keisha yells back. "You gonna put me up in an apartment in Brooklyn or some shit? Tell me to get a job as a check-out girl at a supermarket for six-fifty an hour, and then what? You gonna pay for me to get my GED and go to college? You gonna pay for my hormones and my surgery?"

"You shouldn't have to live like this," Helena bites out. "You're a _child_."

Keisha looks at her for a minute, then she's smiling and she doesn't even know how it happened, because _duh_ , how didn’t she see this before? " _Oh_ ," she says, " _That's_ your thing. You got _baby_ issues."

Helena's shaking her head no in that too-strong way that Keisha knows means she hit the nail on the head this time. "That's unfair," she says.

"Life's unfair," Keisha replies.

Keisha's jaw is starting to get numb so she goes to the freezer and puts the ice pack back on the shelf. She works the joint a few times, open and closed and side to side, and it moves better than it did before. The swelling's down a little.

When she turns around Helena is leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, looking down at the floor. Her fingers are tangled together, squeezing so hard the joints are white.

"Listen," Keisha says, crouching down in front of her. "What you're feeling—I get it. I do. But I'm going to keep living my life the way it works for me. This gig is okay. I don't hate it. Keeps me close to people I care about. Money's okay. In a couple months I think I can get a computer and then I can do things on Craigslist, maybe, get off the corner." She rests her hand over Helena's clenched fists. "But it's on me. It needs to be on me. It's not your responsibility. I can't be. I don't want to be. Okay?"

Helena sits up suddenly, like she's robot somebody just switched on. She pulls her fingers through her hair and flips it back behind her shoulders and then stands, fast and jerky.

"Very well," she says, and she sounds so British Keisha can't help but want to laugh. "I'll see myself out."

But Keisha walks her to the door anyway. "I think you should erase my number," she says.

Helena nods. She glances up at Keisha out of the corner of her eye, without lifting her head, and then steps out the open door into the hallway.

 

///

 

It's mid-afternoon and a woman is crying in a chain hotel room in Astoria. She's kneeling on the carpet, its coarse weave imprinting in her skin through her trousers, and she crouches over her hands, they hover beneath her face, as though she cannot even bear to touch herself with them. Her sobs filter through them as water filters through rocks in a fall.

Between her knees rests a gun, fully loaded, safety off. One side of it is polished smooth where it's spent day after day rubbing against the skin of its previous owner.

She is in the wrong place. She is in the wrong time. She has failed everyone she ever wanted to help.

She wants to end everything. Herself. Everything.

One claw-like hand stretches open, then closes into a fist, then opens again. It reaches for the grip of the gun, picks it up, feels how surprisingly light it is. Wonders if she should test-fire it into a stack of pillows to make sure it works, first. Decides not to bother.

She is shaking, the gun is shaking in her hand, when her cell phone vibrates in her pocket.

Only two living souls have this number. One just asked her never to contact her again. And the other never initiates contact.

She is intrigued. Intrigue is her greatest weakness. She pulls out the phone, reads the text message.

 _Bollocks_ , she thinks. Purposeful, now, she sets the gun back down on the carpet and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She pulls up the number on her phone and presses _call_.

It rings. Rings. Rings. And then stops, without going to voicemail.

Seconds later, the phone vibrates again. Another text message. She reads it.

 _Bollocks again_ , she thinks. She stands, tucks the phone in her pocket. She picks up the gun again and flips the safety on. Then she empties it of its bullets; a quick inspection reveals the extra bullet in the chamber and she pops that free, as well.

In her closet she finds a shoe-shine bag. After wiping the gun and bullets with a towel, she drops them into the bag and tucks it into her waistband.

She picks up her room key, and goes downstairs. There's an office for guests that has a computer; she should be able to use it to find the information she needs.

An hour later, after she's found what she needed, she walks two blocks down the road from the hotel until she finds a wastebasket on the curb beside a bus stop.

As nonchalantly as possible, she drops the bag with the gun inside.

 

///

 

The first thing Myka thinks, when she hears about Dickinson, is that it's her fault.

It's not rational. She knows it's not. Even as she sits on the edge of her bed, half-packed suitcase beside her, she knows that she should stop listening to her inner monologue, snapping back and forth like an angel and devil on her shoulders. The devil says _you should have been there_ and _he offered you the chance to go back_ and _someone probably killed him to get to you_.

 _Or to Pete_ , the angel answers. _Or to Artie_. _It's not all about you._

She reminds herself of the number of times she's saved Pete in the year-and-a-bit she's been at the Warehouse.

 _Some other partner would have saved him_ , the devil says.

 _Like some other agent saved Dickinson? Like some other partner saved Sam?_ the angel retorts.

She looks down at her hands. They're shaking. There's a white shirt clutched between them; it flutters like a flag in a storm. Surrender.

Myka can hear Pete moving around across the hall, packing his things for the trip. She wants to cry. She wants to be held while she sobs through this, but he's got his own grief to carry and she can't ask him to hold hers, too.

She thinks about Leena, knows that Leena would take one look at her aura and wrap her in soft arms. But there's something… clinical about it, when Leena reads your aura and responds to it. She's motivated by observation, not empathy. And it comes from the right place—everything about Leena is warm—but it's not what Myka wants, right at this moment.

The shirt in Myka's hands is rumpled, now. She tosses it to the foot of the bed and goes to the closet for a crisp one, which she folds, carefully, and lays atop her slacks in the suitcase. She looks down at it a moment and suddenly a wet spot darkens its pristine surface. Then another.

 _Dammit_. She wipes her eyes.

She doesn't notice she's doing it when she's doing it: she picks up her phone and sends a text message:

_I just found out a good friend was killed. I'm trying to pack for the funeral and I'm a mess._

Just saying it helps, somehow. She stands, walks to her closet, and begins to gather the rest of the clothing she needs.

It's the first message she's ever sent to H.G. that wasn't in response to a message H.G. first sent to her.

On the nightstand, the phone begins to buzz. And buzz. And buzz. She walks over, clothing stacked between her palms, and looks down at the screen. It reads:

 

_Call from:_ _JACK GRIFFIN_

_No_ , Myka thinks. _No._ The texting is as far as she'll go. She will not talk to H.G. Wells, Warehouse enemy and all-around shady character, on the phone. 

She drops her clothes onto the bedspread and slides the icon on over on the touch-screen to end the connection. Then she sends a text:

_I think that's too far. But thanks._

She wipes her eyes with the back of her finger. She finishes packing. She pockets the phone and goes downstairs.

Two days later, the thing that surprises her most is her lack of surprise at seeing H.G. at the cemetery. But H.G., she learns, is a woman who knows a thing or two about loss. When she talks about her daughter her emotion seems forced, like she's an actress putting it on, and Myka understands that. She does, because she did that, too, with Sam. She knows what it feels like to turn off the faucet where your emotions pour out because otherwise you won't be able to stop overflowing with them. You turn it off, you make yourself numb, but people don't understand that numbness so you perform grief and tragedy overtop of the _nothing_ that fills you completely.

This is what Myka sees when H.G. talks about her daughter.

At the hotel, that night, Myka finds the tracking device in her pocket, and laughs. She laughs and laughs, by herself, for the first time in days, for the first time since she got the call about Dickinson.

With a shake of her head, she flips the device off her thumb like a quarter, catches it, and pockets it again.

She doesn't know why she's doing it. She shouldn't do it. This is a really, really bad idea. She should tell Artie.

But she doesn't tell Artie, She just takes the tracker with her in the pocket of every different jacket she wears.

 _It gives me the upper hand_ , she thinks. _She doesn't know that I know how she's following us._

_Actually, she probably does._

In the airport, when they've got tickets to Moscow in hand and are walking toward security for international departures, she catches, out of the corner of her eye, a head of gleaming black hair. She pivots on her heel to look for it, but it's gone.

"What's up, Mykes?" Pete asks, one eyebrow cocked, his mouth full of airport bagel and cream cheese.

Myka shakes her head. "I just thought I saw… never mind."

He cocks an eyebrow at her. He knows something. She knows he knows. But he's a good friend, so he doesn't ask.


	5. The Devotee of Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hang the doctor! Where is my sister? Where is my niece?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm a bad fan because I forgot that we already knew what Jack the Ripper's artifact was from S1. So I made up my own. It doesn't come up in this chapter but will come up down the road. Hopefully it won't be too distracting; the specific nature of the artifact doesn't really affect the plot.
> 
> Also: the character of McGivens is borrowed with permission from hermitstull's Warehouse 12 universe, published in her collection "The Vodka Made Me Do It." Specific chapter numbers are listed in the notes for chapter 4 of this fic.
> 
> TW: a character threatens suicide again in this chapter, but doesn't follow through. Also, more barbaric Victorian mental "health" practices.

 

Atop the stack of Helena's transcribed stories on Charles' desk grows another stack of magazine and periodicals. He has tucked a scrap of paper in each one, marking the page where Helena's stories have been published in them.

He doesn't take them to the hospital. He doesn't know how she'll react, anymore, the way she's been. But he saves them all—two copies, one for each of them—for some future time.

 

///

 

McGivens does not remove his leather gloves when he steps into the foyer at the Bethlem Hospital, Agent Wolcott and that foppish Charles Wells stumbling behind.

"Agent McGivens, Scotland Yard," he says to the young woman at the desk. "I've an appointment to confer with a patient here; one Miss Helena Wells."

"Yes, sir, I've got it written down here," the nurse says, "but the doctor has asked me to fetch him to speak to you before I take you to her."

"Well, fetch him, then, please. I don't have all day."

"Yes, sir." She ducks her head to look past him, just quickly. "Hello, Mr. Wells."

"Hello, Nurse Sandra." Charles waves, foppishly. He palms his hair into place.

Dr. Austin approaches with his hand outstretched to be shaken. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Agent McGivens. Hello Mr. Wells, and Constable… Wolcott, was it?"

"That's Agent Wolcott, now," McGivens interrupts, "but we're here to see Miss Wells."

"Ah. Yes. And see Miss Wells you shall, of course. But I'd hoped to catch you because, you see, when your colleague Constable—Agent—Wolcott visited a fortnight ago, Miss Wells became quite agitated for a period of several days. So I must ask—"

"—I can't tell you about the nature of my questions, Doctor. They're classified in the highest order," McGivens says, as stiffly as he can, because this doctor is a man who has, clearly, an unhealthy respect for authority.

"Well, yes, of course. But I must keep my patients' best interests in mind, and so I must request that you keep your conversation moderated to simple and un-challenging topics. It is imperative to her recovery, you see, that she not be burdened with pressure to challenge her mind in ways unbefitting her sex."

McGivens barely huffs out a laugh. "I promise you, sir, that when we leave, she will be as unchanged as if we'd never spoken."

Dr. Austin tips his head in acquiescence, and begins to turn toward the corridor. "Very well, then. If you'll just follow me—"

"One moment, Dr. Austin," McGivens says.

The doctor turns back, looking every inch the puzzled, bearded, bespectacled meerkat. "Yes?"

"I just wondered if you could look at this for me." McGivens reaches into his pocket and pulls out a chip of rock the size of a shilling coin. He places it in the doctor's outstretched hand.

The doctor squints at it. "It's a pebble, sir," he says.

"Really," McGivens says. He takes it back from the doctor and hands it to Nurse Sandra. "Do you see anything else, nurse?"

She glances at it in her palm and shrugs. "No, sir. It looks like naught but a bit of gravel to me."

"Hmm. How about you, Mr. Wells?"

The foppish lad jolts, as though he's half fallen asleep on his feet. "Me?" he says. He stretches his hand toward the nurse, who hands the pebble to him. He lifts it closer to the nearest lamp. "Erm… granite? I believe?"

"Excellent, Mr. Wells. Thank you." McGivens holds out his hand, and Charles hands the pebble back to him. McGivens slips it into his pocket. From the corner of his eye he watches Charles turn a querying glance toward Wolcott, and Wolcott gamely shrugs, feigning ignorance. _Good man._

The young woman in question, Miss Wells, is brought to him in a small examination room while Wolcott and Charles wait in the corridor. Her eyes are grey, dull. Her heavily pregnant abdomen strains against the front panel of the drab patient's uniform.

"Miss Wells," he says as she takes her seat. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the pebble. "Would you mind having a look at this?"

He holds the rock out to her; she takes it and peers at it closely. "What should I be looking for?" she asks. "I have not studied geology to any significant degree."

"Well, no matter," McGivens says, and holds his hand out again. She deposits the stone in his palm; he drops it into his pocket and then peels off his gloves as he sits down alongside her. "My name is Barnabas McGivens. My colleague Agent Wolcott has told me spectacular things about you."

"Spectacular," she echoes. "Mr. Wolcott flatters me. He does seem a lovely gentleman."

"I hope you might be willing to solve a few puzzles for me," McGivens says.

"Puzzles," Miss Wells repeats. "If you wish."

It begins with a few games of noughts and crosses. Then a series of mazes, in different shapes and formations, that she solves with a pen. Then he asks her to complete a series of tangrams, and to respond to a series of word puzzles.

In twenty minutes' time, her eyes are wide and glowing, face split into a wide grin.

"Thank you, Miss Wells," McGivens says, "I've seen quite enough." He begins to shuffle his papers back into his folder.

"You've been testing me for something," she says.

He glances up at her and meets her gaze beneath her cocked eyebrow. "Yes, I have," he says.

"I hope I haven't been found wanting," she says.

McGivens tucks the folder into his briefcase and closes it, and then slips his gloves back on.

"A final question, Miss Wells." He pulls the pebble from his pocket. "About this bit of rock…"

He tosses it to her and she catches it instinctively. Before his eyes, she deflates, the sparkle in her eye dulled to grey, the pink in her cheeks draining. She is the woman she was when he arrived.

"I'll take that back, now," he says, and lifts the pebble from her unresponsive hands.

"I… I'm sorry," Miss Wells murmurs. "What can I do for you today, Mr. McGivens?"

"You've done everything I need, Miss Wells. Thank you."

McGivens tips his hat and steps past her befuddled expression into the corridor.

"What did you think? How did it go?" that foppish Charles Wells is upon him the moment he steps out of the examination room.

"Hold this for me for a moment, will you?" McGivens asks and presses the pebble into Wells's palm before he can think to protest. Before his eyes, Wells's agitation softens, his body relaxes.

"So," Wells says, "I'll wait for you here, then?"

"We're done," McGivens says. "Time to go home."

"Done? Home?!" Wells exclaims, "But we've only just arrived! You haven't even spoken to her yet!"

They pass Dr. Austin in the foyer.

"Thank you for your time and your excellent work," McGivens says, one arm outstretched for a handshake, the pebble pinched between his gloved fingers. A shiver runs through Dr. Austin when their hands clasp.

"I must have misdirected you," he says, blinking. "You're walking in the wrong direction. Miss Wells will be meeting you in a room down this way."

"Change of plans," McGivens says. "Much obliged. Thank you."

They file into the foyer. "Catch!" McGivens calls, and then tosses the pebble toward Nurse Sandra at the desk. She catches it instinctually, as Miss Wells had done, and McGivens watches the shiver pass through her, too. She blinks at them. "If—if—if you'll follow me, a guard will bring Miss Wells to you in a moment…"

"No need," McGivens says. "Thank you." He plucks the pebble from her palm and slips it into his pocket.

In the cab, Charles leans over to Wolcott. "I took a day's leave from my studies for _this?_ This has been a colossal waste of everyone's time. He didn't even _speak_ to her!"

Wolcott attempts to soothe him: "Believe me, old friend, Mr. McGivens learned more from this visit than you, or even your sister, will ever understand."

 

///

 

Two days later, a messenger delivers a telegram to Charles during one of his classes at the university. "Re your sister," the message reads. "9 am tomorrow 136 Wardour St. 

136 Wardour st. is a bookshop in Soho. The attendant inside does not greet him, he merely points to a door in the back of the shop. It opens into a windowless room lit with a gas lamp, with an old, wooden table and chairs and little else. It smells of stale air and tea. Wolcott and McGivens are there. So is Chaturanga, the man from the pub. And there is a woman with dark skin and a stern, angular face whom Charles has never seen before.

They all work for Scotland Yard—at least, all of the men do—but this feels like the most unorthodox and surreptitious Scotland Yard meeting that Charles could possibly imagine.

"Sit down, young man," McGivens says. "There's tea for you. Milk? Sugar?"

"No, thank you," Charles says. There is a teacup on the table in front of him; he pulls it closer with both hands and leans down to blow on it.

"Let's cut to the chase, shall we?" McGivens says.

Charles nods. "Yes, sir."

"Your sister has the potential to be of tremendous value to the Scotland Yard enterprise of which we four are all a part," McGivens says. "So much potential that we would be remiss not to take steps to encourage her to join our ranks."

"I think she would like that, sir," Charles says. He sips his tea. "She loves puzzles and things, and the hospital—it's killing her. It's killing her." He says it more quietly the second time, almost to himself.

"Her diagnoses, such as they are, are of little concern to us," McGivens says.

Chaturanga nods emphatically, and then shrugs. "'Hysteria' is a figment," he says, "and 'inversion' is not our concern."

Charles feels the breath slip from his lungs, though he can't tell if it's from nervousness or relief.

McGivens leans forward, bracing his elbows on the table. "I can have her discharged from hospital into your custody, Mr. Wells, on order of the Crown," he says, "but I'm given to understand that you do not have the means to house her and that there is, as of yet, no fixed plan for the baby."

"She wants to raise the child herself. Away from Bethlem, of course," Charles says. "But she will need help. She's been there a little over a year. It will take time to adjust to life outside again." His hands are shaking now, with nerves and excitement, and he will no longer touch his teacup for fear of spilling.

"That's what I told them you'd told me," Wolcott says. "And that's where Sophie, here, comes in." He gestures with an open palm toward the woman. She smiles at Charles and tips her head in greeting; Charles smiles back, tight-lipped.

"Six months," says McGivens. "We're proposing to support you for six months. You shall be relocated to a three-bedroom home in the West End, and we shall hire Sophie to be your housekeeper, to help Miss Wells with the baby. During this time Miss Wells will, in addition to caring for her child, be expected to cultivate mental stability and good health. At or before the six-month mark, we shall approach Miss Wells about joining our employ formally. Should she accept the offer, arrangements will be made so that the cost of housing and of Sophie's employ may be partially compensated from within Miss Wells' salary, and the rest from your own, in the employment of your choice. Should she decline, you will have one month in which to relocate or to find another source of income. Does this offer seem fair to you?"

Charles' hands are fisted in the fabric of his trousers, but he feels his elbows shake nonetheless. He feels his heels stutter against the floor. He feels that he might cry, might sob like a child with the relief.

"Yes," he says. "Yes."

 

///

 

Sophie watches the colours swirling around the young man, Charles. When he arrived in the room his aura was pink: nervous, agitated. It has settled, now, into a dark blue, verging onto purple: he has calmed, he is relieved, but he is on the edge of being overwhelmed with emotion.

She leans toward him. "We'll take good care of your sister," she says, firmly. She is not a warm person. She has never been a warm person. But she is a caring person, and he is not much younger than her daughter, and his heart is good.

She smiles at him.

He smiles back.

"Yes," he says, "we will."

 

///

 

At 9:23 AM on that same day, a messenger boy knocks on the door of a laboratory at the Normal School of Science.

"Urgent telegram for Charles Wells," he says.

"Charles isn't here today," replies the irate professor.

The boy goes to his next address, for a boarding house in South Kensington.

"Landlady's out but I'll see he gets it," says the man who answers the door.

The boy shrugs. He has no other options. He leaves the telegram with the boarder, who tucks it in his pocket and promptly forgets it exists.

 

///

 

The following day, Sophie meets Charles near a pub in South Kensington and together they board a cab bound for Southwark.

Charles is mauve, today: light, relaxed. Happy.

"Thank you for agreeing to come with me," he says. "I think Helena will prefer to meet you now, before the baby is born and before she comes home."

Sophie smiles carefully and nods.

"Do you have children of your own, then?" Charles asks, then claps a hand to his forehead. "I'm sorry. That's terribly rude of me. You don't have to answer that."

Sophie smiles a little more softly this time. "I have two," she says. "They're grown, now. My daughter, the youngest, married a year ago."

Charles shifts on the bench to better face her. "Is it hard to raise a child?"

Sophie cocks her head to the side. "It is," she says. "But it's wonderful, too."

But when they arrive at Bethlem, things are not wonderful. Someone is suffering. Someone is in such agony that the very air of the place seems, to Sophie, to be tinted in pink.

The nurse from the desk runs up to them as soon as they come in the door.

"At last!" she says. "We've been wondering what kept you."

"Kept me?" Charles asks. "Whatever do you mean?"

"The baby, of course. She arrived last night."

Charles surges in red; it melds into the pink that saturates the room. "I wasn't notified!" he shouts. "I was supposed to be notified by telegram the moment she went into labor!"

"We sent a telegram yesterday morning, sir." The nurse shrugs.

Charles opens his mouth to answer but the sound that echoes through the room is of a female voice, crying out harshly, just a sound, not a word. Charles jumps like a startled squirrel and then charges through the door, deeper into the hospital.

"Mr. Wells!" the nurse calls as she chases after him. "Mr. Wells, the doctor will—"

"Hang the doctor! Where is my sister? Where is my niece?"

Sophie is not old, but she's not as young as she once was; it's all she can do to keep up as she follows Charles and the nurse into the bowels of the hospital. The pink becomes thicker, darker, more ominous, and when she hears another cry it pulses in thick, dark, sanguine red.

They come to a junction in the hallway and Charles skids to a halt. He gazes down one direction ,then the other.

"Mr. Wells!" the nurse gasps, her breathing strained from their run through the corridors. "Wait here, please, and I'll fetch the doctor."

"Where is she!" He's shouting, unapologetically. Sophie can see the red and the black streaking from him; he's infuriated, he's terrified.

The aura of rage and grief fills the building like a fog. Sophie looks one way, then the other. The red darkens down the hallway to their left.

"This way," Sophie says. "Come along."

Charles nods and follows after her. Behind them, Sophie can hear the nurse groan in frustration. Beneath that there's another sound: the woman's voice is crying out continuously, now, not merely in bursts; she might be sobbing, or shouting nonsense syllables, but they don't stop. Sophie follows the aura left, then right, and right again, and she is taller than Charles so he must shuffle to keep up but he does not complain.

"How do you know where we're going?" he asks.

"I know," she says.

She strides to a halt in front of a closed door. The rage emanating through the wood is so thick that Sophie struggles to stay upright in its draft; she wants to duck, to curl and cower beneath it like a windstorm—and to think that there's a _person_ , there, _making_ this feeling—

Sophie swallows hard and steels her stomach as Charles reaches for the doorknob.

Inside stands a bearded, bespectacled man (the doctor?) with his arms crossed and his head turning from side to side like a disappointed schoolmaster. There's a flustered-looking, aged nurse, fussing and murmuring quiet words over a gurney.

And that's the site of the rage, that's where the red comes from that saturates the whole building. It's the gurney, the woman strapped to it at the wrists and shoulders and ankles and hips. She is fighting the restraints, tugging and pulling with the force and irrationality of a rabid animal, so hard that the gurney rocks against the floor. And the red rage coats her, it pulls on her, it climbs around her body like primordial ooze visible only to people like Sophie, who have the gift.

"Helena," Charles says.

The woman is screaming. _Screaming,_ and sobbing. "You took her from me! Where is my daughter? Have you no mercy? Have you no compassion? How could you take an infant from her mother? _Where is my Christina?"_ Between the words are guttural sounds of despair and rage, and Sophie is not warm but she is caring, and she finds herself beside the woman on the gurney, reaching over and putting her hands on a sweat- and tear-slicked face.

"Hush," she says, quietly. "Hush, now."

"But my baby." She is sobbing, now. "Where is my baby?"

Sophie glances back over her shoulder. Charles stands rooted in place, his hands clenching and opening again, beside the doctor.

"Who are you?" the doctor asks indignantly. His eyes slide over with familiar disdain.

She ignores him and turns to Charles. "This is cruel. She needs her baby, not only for her mind, but for her body."

"Her body?" Charles asks dumbly.

Sophie flattens her hand across her own upper chest. "She needs to nurse," she says. "Or she will be in pain for hours, maybe days, until her milk dries up. And we should not let her milk dry up if we're to take her home."

"Take her home!" the doctor says. "I've told you, Mr. Wells, that I haven't the authority to release her to you—"

"Authority is coming," Charles says, his eyes still locked with Sophie's. Then he shifts his gaze to Helena, who has calmed, somewhat, with Sophie's hand on her shoulder. She has stopped thrashing but she continues to cry, desperately. She lifts her head and drops it against the metal, three times.

"Now, now," Sophie says, firm, businesslike. "Don't do that."

"Unbind her," Charles says to Sophie.

"Mr. Wells!" the doctor barks. "Absolutely not! This is for her own safety and the safety of everyone around her!"

Charles shouts something back but Sophie isn't listening, not now. Helena is sobbing again, pulling against the cuffs at her wrists and shoulders. Sophie leans in and presses her palm to Helena's flushed forehead.

"Look at me," she says, firmly. "Look at me and breathe."

Helena does.

 

///

 

Nurse Valerie has never felt so conflicted in all of her professional life.

Helena Wells is not healthy. She can see that.

But Nurse Valerie was in the room, in this very room, for the delivery, holding the young Miss Wells' hand as the midwife coaxed her through the birthing.

She saw the flare of life in her eyes when the baby finally emerged, saw the grin—the first true grin she has seen Miss Wells emit in months and months—when she heard the baby cry and watched the midwife swaddle her.

And she was there, holding young Helena's hand, when the midwife cradled the infant and took her out of the room, following the doctor's orders. She was there when Helena screamed for the first time, when her arms shot forward toward the closing door. And she was there when the guards came in, and strapped her down, and then when the doctor arrived.

"We must give her something," Nurse Valerie had said, "We can't let her suffer like this."

"Her body must heal first," the doctor said. "I know it's terrible. Tomorrow we can give her something. And the baby is fine, she's with the wet nurse. I've no idea where that boy Charles has buggered off to—excuse me—but I hope he'll be here soon, or the baby will have to go to the poorhouse."

Helena has been struggling, screaming, crying ever since, for hours on end, now.

Valerie feels her fingernails dig into her own palms. This woman, this tall, stern-seeming negro woman, is soothing Helena more than she, herself, has managed to do in the year since Helena was admitted.

Nurse Valerie makes a decision that may see her sacked. But she is an aging woman, a mother whose children have children, and perhaps she has dulled her heart for too long.

The doctor is arguing with Mr. Wells. She pushes past both of them, out the door.

 

///

 

Sophie sees the red in the room dulling, turning more brown, as Miss Wells' sobs dull and turn to hiccups. When her eyes are open, she stares unabashedly into Sophie's, but more and more they close and she lies back as grief overtakes the rage.

The men are still arguing.

"I am a professional, Mr. Wells, and I know what's best for my patients!"

"I am her _brother_ , Dr. Austin, and while my sister may be peculiar, _I know what she needs now_!"

The door opens and closes and a baby cries, louder than the argument. Helena's eyes fly open and she tries to sit up before the restraints snap her back down. Sophie's head spins around. And it's that nurse, the one who just left, cradling a swaddled pink newborn with a thatch of black hair on its brow

"Christina!" Helena cries, and she's tugging on her restraints again, deep red blazing around her in all direction.

Sophie awaits no instructions; she finds the buckle on the wrist cuff and begins to tug at it. She looks up and Charles is doing the same with the other wrist.

"Nurse Valerie!" Dr. Austin is saying, "remove that child at once!"

"No, Dr. Austin, I'm afraid I will not, today," she says. The baby is crying and Helena is crying and when her wrists are free Helena, herself, unfastens the buckle at her shoulders while Charles unbinds her hips. Helena jolts upright and both hands begin to tug at the buttons at the back of her neck.  Sophie helps her, and when they're fully unfastened Helena tugs one arm out of the sleeve.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," the doctor says and turns his back just before Helena's breast is exposed. Charles wheels around too, blushing furiously.

The nurse settles the baby in Helena's outstretched arms and then steps back. Helena cradles her, offers her a nipple and when the baby latches on the groan of relief that bursts from Helena's throat borders on obscene. Sophie remembers that feeling, the sudden easing of hours of built-up pressure, and feels an empathetic twinge in her own chest.

"Here," she says, and she guides Helena's hands to properly support the baby's head and neck. "Like this."

Helena takes the guidance willingly, and once she's re-settled, she looks up into Sophie's eyes for reassurance. Sophie nods.

"My Christina," Helena murmurs, smiling down again. The red of her aura has dulled to flashes, now, surrounded by a pale, soothing mauve. "Isn't she perfect?"

"She is," Sophie says.

The nurse steps closer again. "Shall we ease things for the gentlemen, then?" she says. She has unfastened her apron and holds it in her hands. Sophie steps back and Helena doesn't resist as the nurse drapes the apron over her shoulder, covering the baby and all of Helena's exposed skin. "There," she says.

"Well, Mr. Wells, what's your intent now?" the doctor asks, turning around. He cleans his spectacles ostentatiously against the front of his shirt.

"Helena is to be released into my custody—" he holds his hand up as the doctor opens his mouth to object—"pending the legal documentation still being processed. I understand that you cannot release her until the documents arrive, but we need to make sure Helena continues to have access to the baby for nursing and, eh, other such motherly… things."

"And how do you propose we manage that?" the doctor asks. "We haven't the facilities to keep a baby here."

"I can take her," Sophie says, stepping forward. "My sister lives less than a mile from here. She owns a laundry. Christina and I can stay with her for a few nights, and I'll bring her back here during the day to spend time with her mother." She looks down at Helena, now, who has shifted the baby to the other side and is gazing up at her with wide doe eyes. "Does that suit you?" Sophie asks.

Helena nods.

Charles clasps his hands together. "It's settled, then."

Sophie nods.

She's quite sure Irene won't mind the company for a few days.

 

///

 

"Christina?" Charles says to Helena, a week later, once they're settled into the new townhome. "That's a name with a weighted history in your life, isn't it?"

He's standing in the doorway. He's come to tell her that he's venturing out for the afternoon; he's met a lovely woman who's agreed to join him for a walk in Regent's Park. The question has lingered at the back of his mind for some time, though, and has chosen this moment to emerge of its own volition.

Helena has just finished feeding the baby and is patting her back against her shoulder. She is pacing leisurely circles in front of the window in her bedroom. The sky is grey through the window, giving the room a silvery, opaque glow; she passes in and out of shadow as she walks.

Helena shrugs. "I wanted to name her for someone I loved," she says. She stops walking, her face only half in darkness, and meets his eyes. "Charlotte was my first idea. But I thought it would be more polite to let you keep the variants of your name for your own children, don't you agree?"

Someone less familiar with her inflections of speech might mistake her comment for a throw-away, but Charles is not among them. He hears what she's saying. Charles hadn't realized he'd wanted some appreciation, some acknowledgment of the work and emotion he's devoted to his sister over the last year, but in these words from Helena's mouth he hears all of it, all of the thanks and the love an the respect he could ever ask of anyone.

(Over a decade later, just past a year after he has bid Helena farewell for the last time, he will name his first-born not Charles, for himself, but George, for her.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Joe Willis flies to Moscow pretty often for business. He's looking forward to retiring in two or three years because, for one thing, he's too old to be spending this much time on a plane. So he appreciates a good seat-neighbor. He really does. 

Like this young woman. Pretty, which is always nice. Skinny, which is probably good because he's not, so much, anymore, and these seats are narrow.

Soon as she sits down, she takes a folder out of her handbag and starts writing furiously on a legal pad. He looks over. He can't even read the letters.

"You writing in code, or something?"

She looks up at him with her eyes, her head still tipped forward, and then looks back down and keeps writing. "Hardly. It's Imperial Aramaic," she says.

"Oh. That's pretty neat. You a professor or something?"

She keeps writing. "Yes," she says.

Joe settles back in his chair. "My son wants to go back to school to get his Ph.D. in Ancient History," he says. "I told him he's too old to live on grad student pay."

She pauses at that, her pen hovering over the paper. She looks up at him. Her pupils  are dark, but her eyes are bright; they're wide, like she's worked up about something. "What do you know about, er, 'grad student' pay?"

He puts his hands up defensively. "Hey, no offense. I don't know much, really. I mean, my daughter studies anthropology and it always seems to me like she'll take any work she's offered no matter how little the paycheck. She says that's just what's expected. It seems like a bit of a racket to me, to be honest. No offense."

She blinks at him once. Twice. Then looks back down and continues writing. "None taken," she says. "It's infuriating, the things some people must do to make ends meet in this day and age."

There's a tension to her voice, and even Joe can tell there's something bigger there she's talking about, but something about the way she says it is sort of… slimy. He doesn't want to ask.

She puts her stuff away when the announcement comes on that she should, to get ready for takeoff. When the plane pushes back from the gate he sees her wrap her fingers tight around the armrests.

"Nervous flyer?" he asks, with a chuckle.

"I suppose," she says. "It's hard to wrap my head around the idea that something of this size with no visible moving parts should be able to stay aloft."

"Yeah, I hear ya. I try not to think about it much. The more you fly, the easier it gets," he says.

She leans back against the seat and closes her eyes as the plane accelerates up the runway. "Well," she grits out, "I hope not to have to do it too many more times."

When they are aloft, she pulls out her pad and paper and keeps writing. The evening meal comes and goes, and then Joe tilts his chair back and puts on a sleep mask. "Don't be afraid to wake me if you need to get up for the restroom," he says.

She nods, still writing.

He dozes off eventually and wakes up about an hour before landing. She's still writing.

"Wow, did you ever take a break?" he asks.

"No," she says.

"Must be a big project," he says. "Got something big going on in Russia?"

"No," she says, her pen still moving at a frenetic pace. When she looks up her eyes are owl-like, red-rimmed, like she didn't even stop working to blink, let alone sleep. "My opportunity is in America, but being well-prepared in Russia will be essential to its success."

Joe chuckles. "I hope it doesn't involve too much flying for you."

She smiles. "No, I don't suspect it will."

 

\\\\\

 

As if Pete didn't have enough reasons to dislike H.G. Wells already, seriously.

Every time she shows up, he gets vibes up, down, sideways and backward. They might be the weirdest damn vibes he's ever had, and that's saying something, with the kind of vibes he gets working at the Warehouse. And it's annoying, really damn annoying, that he has no idea what they mean. It's like, he'll get halfway through a bad vibe and it'll turn happy. Or halfway through a sad vibe and it'll turn scary. When she's around he feels like he's a radio right on the edge between, like, a top-40 radio station and one of those fire-and-brimstone religious stations, so he's hearing angry shouting over thumpa-thumpa dance-pop beats, and he wishes _somebody_ would just nudge the knob one way or the other so he could hear something _clearly_.

And then you put Myka in the mix and things get even weirder, because on top of feeling these mashed-potato vibes he's got to deal with the fact that _of course_ the _freaking time travelling murderer genius_ is the first person he's met who apparently operates on the same wavelength as Myka does.

He is not thrilled—he is _really_ not thrilled—to learn that Myka's been letting H.G. stalk her for days and hasn't said anything to him.

And he knows they worked together in California for a bit but there's more going on than that. There is. There has to be, for them to be this… clicky.

Every time H.G. looks at Myka, he gets the weirdest vibes, like he's swimming in the ocean and there's something slimy around his ankle is trying to pull him under, but at the same time he can see the blue sky and the sparkling water and it's the most beautiful thing in the world.

 

///

 

In the taxi, Pete sits in front with the driver while Myka and H.G. sit in the back with the transmitter. H.G. holds it, periodically tweaking a knob to keep the signal strong, and Myka relays her instructions to the driver in Russian.

On a long, straight, stretch of road, Myka leans closer and asks, quietly: "Who OD'd?"

H.G. waits a beat before answering. "A young woman I met," she says. Her eyes flit up to Myka's and she forces a tight-lipped smile, and says, "she was pregnant." Her voice resonates in the low frequencies, something sinister.

Myka opens her mouth to respond but is cut off by the transmitter beeping at them.

"Left! Left!" H.G. shouts, and Myka relays the message to the driver who hauls hard on the wheel to avoid missing the corner. Centrifugal force tosses an unprepared H.G. practically into Myka's lap and their foreheads clonk together.

As the car straightens out, H.G. pushes back across the seat and when Myka looks over at her they're both clutching their foreheads.

"That was not ideal," Myka says.

"No, it wasn't," H.G. says, and chuckles, and the hint of darkness is gone.

From the front seat, Pete says, "This is ridiculous," and Myka can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

 

///

 

 

For several minutes after they find Artie safe it's all Pete can do to catch his breath, leaning against one of the wooden beams. Myka is sitting on the floor her back against the other one, and even old Papa Bear is looking kind of adrift, standing in the middle of the empty space.

Ivan is on the floor, still passed out; Myka cuffed his wrists behind his back and Pete  used his belt to tie his ankles, too, just to be safe.

On the floor beyond him, H.G. is curled up, shivering, and the sight of a grown woman tucked in the fetal position on a concrete floor is pathetic enough but the fact that she's clutching a piece of driftwood like it's a teddy bear makes him wish he had a _real_ teddy bear to give her.

Pete thinks of his dad, who would probably tell him to be a gentleman, go over there and offer the lady your jacket. But he sees her glancing back over her shoulder, at Artie, and the vibe is so thick and dark he can't bring himself to move toward it.

But Myka doesn't feel vibes. And maybe that's a good thing, right now, because H.G. might be creepy and a killer but she still saved Artie's life. And now Myka's making H.G. sit up, and she's shrugging out of her own jacket and wrapping it around H.G.'s shoulders like the gentleman Pete couldn't quite bring himself to be.

"You okay?" Myka asks.

H.G. nods. She's tense, but no longer shivering. "It's wearing off," she says. Then she cocks an eyebrow. "What on earth was this 'Titanic,' anyway?"

Myka laughs quietly. "That's a really depressing story for some other day," she says.

H.G. smiles up at her and for a moment, just a moment, the racket of vibes in Pete's head quiets down to one, and it's big and fluffy and sweet, like cotton candy.

"All right," Artie grouses, walking toward them. He glares down at H.G. "I'm going to need that back.

"Artie!" Myka protests, and she opens her mouth to say more but H.G. stops her with a hand on her arm.

"What then?" H.G. says to Artie. She manages, somehow, to look like she's looking _down_ at him, even though she's sitting on the floor and he's standing above her.

Artie's eyes narrow. "What do you want, then?"

"I would prefer not to be imprisoned again."

Artie grunts.  On the floor beside him, Ivan begins to stir.

"Warehouse security teams are already on their way," Artie says. "You should go now."

H.G. nods. She stands slowly and hands the driftwood to Artie, and then shrugs off the coat and turns to hand it to Myka, behind her.

The vibes, all of them, are dulling now.

"Thank you," H.G. says.

"Thank _you_ ," Myka says, with her small, Myka-esque smile.

H.G. nods once at Artie, and once at Pete. Pete nods back. And then she heads for the stairs.

 

///

 

Only Artie knows that Regent security will have tracked Pete and Myka's movements and are already outside the building.

Only Artie knows that H.G. will be caught as soon as she steps out the door.

He doesn't trust her. Not even a little. But she did right by him, so maybe, he thinks, maybe she deserves a shot to go and make a life for herself in this new era. Maybe she deserves to be free of the Warehouse. But only the Regents can make that decision.

So he's sped up the process for her.

 

///

 

As Pete hauls a still-dazed Ivan to his feet, he feels a vibe. A dark one, coming from H.G., somewhere beyond.

"I—I think something's happened to her," he says.

"To H.G.?" Myka says, her hand going for her Tesla.

"You have a job to do, children, and she is not it," Artie barks.

"But she's—"

" _Artifacts_ , Myka. Bag them. Please."

Myka looks at Pete. Pete shrugs. And then Myka looks down, clearly uncomfortable, but in true Myka fashion, she follows the order she's given.

 

///

 

It's ironic that Phillip Petrov was recruited to the Regency in part because of his military experience. He completed his mandatory service as a younger man, of course, and discovered he had talent for it, but he despises fighting and army tactics. Hates them.

And he knows that he's here, outside an abandoned factory in Moscow, because he's Russian, not because of his military background. He knows it's because he's the one who will know how to move H.G. Wells from Moscow back to America for evaluation.

But he's still standing here, surrounded by these mercenaries in black carrying assault rifles, protected by the open, bulletproof door of one of their trucks. He's got a bullhorn in his hand and he knows what to do with it. He's got a team of men inside the building, prepared to catch her if she retreats upon sight of the barricade awaiting her.

The door opens. Her head pokes out and immediately retreats behind the door.

Petrov brings the bullhorn to his lips. "H.G. Wells, you are surrounded. Please come out with your hands above your head, and you will not be hurt."

He waits a second. Five more. Five more again. She doesn't emerge. He lifts the bullhorn again, opens his mouth to speak, but then—

the door opens and she steps out, hands up—and she's got a handgun in one of them, pointed toward the sky.

The mercenaries around him immediately cock their rifles and level them into firing pose.

"Hold your fire," he says. Then, through the bullhorn: "Kneel down, Miss Wells."

She does.

"Set the gun on the ground and slide it toward me."

The hand holding the gun begins to lower, slowly, but at the last second, before she can toss it away, he sees her grip tighten and she turns it on herself, presses it under her jaw.

"Now, Miss Wells. Don't do anything rash."

"You know in my day, the Warehouse was an honest establishment," she says.

"We still are, Miss Wells."

"It doesn't feel that way from where I'm kneeling." She glances slightly back, at the door from which she emerged. At the people still inside.

"Come, Miss Wells. The Regents wish only to converse with you."

Her eyes fix on him, steely. "I will not return to the bronze. I will not."

"Miss Wells—"

"Promise me I shall not be returned to the bronze, and I'll come with you."

"I cannot promise that."

She cocks the gun.

"Please, Miss Wells, don't do anything rash."

"What is your name, young man?"

And he can't help but chuckle a little because she is, of course, older than him, by some measures, despite her young face.

"Petrov," he says. "Regent Petrov."

"Well, Regent Petrov. When you have spent a century in static sensory deprivation, perhaps you will earn the right to make claims about what is or is not rash behavior."

Petrov swallows. During his time in the military, he was put forward as a candidate for a high-level infiltration team. As part of his training, he was made to withstand various types of torture. He experienced sensory deprivation for forty-eight hours. Then he opted out of the program.

"The alternatives to bronzing are far more severe. And permanent," he says.

She rolls her eyes at him. Actually rolls her eyes. "Death?" she scoffs, "With all due respect, I'm holding a pistol beneath my chin, and I am not afraid to use it. I would choose death over bronzing."

Petrov says, "If it comes to it, I'll be sure you're given that option. Now, please, set down the gun."

She glares at him and then closes her eyes, thinking. Her nostrils are flared and her breath comes in fast pants.

Petrov turns to the captain beside him. "Have them put down their arms," he says.

"But sir—"

"Do it."

The captain shouts the order and the muzzles of a dozen rifles drop almost simultaneously.

"Agent Bering would be disappointed if you made the wrong decision today," Petrov says. "I hear she has made overtures for friendship?"

Her eyes open at that. They scan the ring of mercenaries, then rest on him, unblinking.

"I have your word on the bronze?" she says loudly.

He nods. "Death over bronzing. You have my word."

 Slowly, she pulls the gun from her jaw and resets the hammer and the safety. She sets it on the ground and slides it gently outside of her own reach.

Almost immediately three armed men descend on her. They grasp her wrists and cuff her hands behind her back.

"Easy," Petrov calls.

He watches as they bundle her into the back of a Humvee, and then he walks down the block and climbs behind the wheel of his sports car. Behind the mirrored windows, he pulls up his sleeves and inspects the integrity of the Remati shackle, as has become his habit. It changes temperatures, he's discovered, depending on the mood and condition of the Warehouse. Right now it's hot; not hot enough to burn, but warm enough to be uncomfortable. He wonders, not for the first time, what the temperature means, but Irene has asked him to stop calling every time the shackle feels a little unusual.

"If the Warehouse is in danger, the shackle will let you know unmistakably," she'd said. "Otherwise, please, don't trouble yourself. Or me."

He tugs his sleeve under the shackle, a barrier between the warmth and his skin, before starting the car and driving away.

 

///

 

Artie is relieved that when he emerges from the factory with Pete, Myka, and a subdued Ivan, any scene that may have happened with H.G. Wells has apparently dispersed. There are two armored SUVs waiting for them, armed guards standing by their passenger doors.

They toss Ivan into one. He'll be handled by the local authorities until Petrov, the Russian Regent, can negotiate something with the higher-ups.

Artie, Pete, and Myka climb into the other car, which takes them back to their hotel and, once their bags are packed, on to the airport.

 

///

 

As soon as the plane reaches altitude, Myka's got her laptop out, Word doc open, and she's typing.

"Mykes," Pete says, "we've just completed the most epic snag-and-bag of our warehouse careers. Don't you think you can take a break?"

"They're going to get her," Myka says. "Artie, the regents… it's a witch-hunt and it's not fair."

Pete sighs. "What does that have to do with you?"

"I'm writing a report. She deserves a shot, Pete." She pauses and looks over at him. "Don't you think?"

Pete shrugs. "A shot at what, exactly?"

She turns back to her screen and sighs. "I don't know. At the very least, a shot at not being bronzed again."

"I guess I don't know if she does," Pete says, "But I don't know that she doesn't, either." But Myka is typing away again, and he can't even tell if she was listening.

He shrugs and bends over to pull his headphones out of his bag, because the in-flight entertainment's about to start and the universe must love him because they're showing _The Hangover_.

 


	6. Text-book of Biology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's a great difference between being kept in a prison with a locked door and one with no door at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I'm on a fic-writing roll, apparently... here! Have a chapter!
> 
> The scene with Caturanga was written by memory, because I don't own the DVDs and couldn't find a youtube clip of the scene (I thought I'd be able to, but no luck). If I messed it up problematically, please let me know.

Helena, Charles, and Sophie address one another by their given names.

They make the decision with barely a conversation.

"I'm being paid to work for you," Sophie says.

"Well, yes, but we aren't the ones paying you," Charles replies.

"A bit belated to stand on ceremony after everything you've seen of me, don't you think?" Helena adds.

And that's that.

 

///

 

"I'd like a table in my room," Helena had said to Charles, a few days after they moved into the house. "Is that possible?"

It isn't, not at first. Charles needs his desk for work. Sophie has a small table in her room, but she uses it as well, to write letters to her children and to do her bookkeeping.

There is a long, narrow table along one wall in the drawing room. Charles moves that to Helena's room and sets it alongside her boudoir. It becomes her workbench. She acquires broken lamps, furniture, piping, other bits of scrap metal; she cuts and bends them into the shapes she wants. Charles hears her at all hours, rattling metal about and emerging with the most random assortment gadgets. One day, it's a contraption that lifts the salt shaker to put salt on one's food if one cranks a hand-wheel.

"I think it's easier to just pick up the salt, don't you?" Charles asks.

"I quite think that's not the point, Charlie," Helena says, laughing, before pouring so much salt on her pork that it becomes almost inedible.

 

///

 

Helena reads textbooks—Charles's, from university. Physics and chemistry and biology. She marks up the margins with notes and questions and hasty calculations where Charles has barely bothered to read them.

"This book is atrocious," she says, thrusting the biology book across the kitchen table toward Charles. "For one thing, its explanation of the simplest concepts is unnecessarily opaque. And for another—can a person truly call himself a biologist in this day and age without accounting in _some_ capacity for Darwin's _Origin of Species_?"

Charles reaches over and flips absently through the textbook. She has marked up the whole thing; all the space in the margins is filled with notes and diagrams, and entire paragraphs and pages have simply been crossed out with large X's, words like 'hogwash' and 'idiocy' penned in the margins.

He has an idea.

"We could write a better one," he says.

Helena glances back from where she's fetching a slice of bread from the breadbox. "A better biology book?" she asks.

Charles nods.

Helena grins. "Can you start the process with the notes I've written in there? While I do love to read a book, I believe I lack the patience to sit and write one, word for word."

Now Charles is grinning, too. "I do believe I can," he says, flipping through still more pages and scanning the comments and the notes.

"Aces!" Helena grins. "And then we'll add and revise things from there."

Charles begins. He becomes consumed by the task, avoiding his classes at university. He has been struggling academically since Helena went into the hospital—but he never enjoyed it, anyway, not the way he enjoys this, pushing the ideas around on his own.

After two full weeks of truancy from all of his coursework, he writes to the university registrar and asks to withdraw, so that he may focus on the book full-time.

 

///

 

Having worked through Charles' textbooks, Helena reads the newspapers every day. One day's issue features a story about a fire in Brixton that burned down a small block of flats. It happened during the day, so most of the men were away at work, but four women and nine children were killed. It was in an immigrant neighborhood, so there wasn't much of a fire brigade to help out and the people who'd escaped had largely been helped by neighbours who braved the flames to rescue them. But the families on the top floors were trapped.

Charles comes home that afternoon to find Helena pacing restlessly in the hall, disheveled strands of hair snaking out from her chignon, wringing smudged hands before her.

"What's wrong?" he exclaims immediately. "Christina?"

"I need hollow cable," Helena says. "I need a hundred feet of hollow cable."

"Cable?" Charles echoes.

"Yes, cable! Cable! At greater lengths than the scraps I find by the bins behind the general store!" Helena tosses her hands in front of her like she's throwing reins at a horse.

Charles feels pressure building behind his eyes. "You've been looking for cable in the rubbish bins behind the general store?"

Sophie comes through the door from the kitchen carrying a tray, stoic as always, but Charles can see that she's aware of Helena's state.

"Here, now," she says. "Sit down. Have some tea."

Charles follows them into the drawing room. Helena perches on the settee, beside Charles. She reaches for the cup but it rattles against its saucer as she lifts it, tea splashing over the rim. She exhales and puts it down. Her hands come to rest on her knees and then begin to rub them roughly, rhythmically, as though pushing cloth along a washboard.

"I need to find cable," she says. "And a welder, ideally. Do you know any welders?"

"Where is Christina?" Charles asks.

"Asleep, upstairs," Sophie says. She sits on the leather chesterfield chair opposite Charles and Helena, back straight, knees and ankles together before her. She turns her arched eyebrow to Helena. "There will be no more talk of cables until you have rested."

"I'll rest after I make these arrangements," Helena says. Charles can see the white almost all the way around her irises.

"No," Sophie says.

"Get some sleep," Charles says. "I'll find out where my professor gets cables for his machinery, but it may take a few days."

"You can wait a few days," Sophie says.

Helena freezes, then nods once, jerkily. "Yes. Yes. I can wait a few days, I suppose."

"Now," Sophie says, "You must go upstairs and lie down."

"Lie down," Helena echoes.

"Yes," Sophie says. "Go upstairs and lie down."

Helena nods and stands, moving in saccades like a poorly-handled marionette.  Charles watches Sophie's feet follow hers until they disappear beyond the landing in the stairwell.

A few minutes later, Sophie comes back down the stairs with Christina nestled against her chest. Charles stands but he taps his fingers against his thighs, adrift in his own living room.

"What was that about?" he asks.

Sophie arches an eyebrow. "You'd best get her her cables," she says, and disappears into the kitchen.

 

///

 

Helena swirls in teal, pink, royal purple and black. Her nap lasts a scant hour before Sophie hears her again, moving around in her room.  She moves intermittently, through the night and the next day in her room. The day after that, Charles acquires two great lengths of cable that meet her specifications.

Sometimes, Sophie brings her food. Sometimes, Helena smiles brilliantly and eats it. Other times she waves a hand in the air in acknowledgment and then ducks lower over her work table.

Sophie watches Helena while Helena feeds Christina, because it's the only way she can be sure that Helena sits still and doesn't continue to fiddle, one-handed, with her bits of metal while the other arm cradles her child. But she does stop. It's the only time she stops, cooing down at her baby while she sits in the rocking chair, her colours cooling to blue.

When she finally emerges from her room she's disheveled, her hands and face covered in metal stains, with a large contraption in her hands. It's awkward and asymmetrical, but Sophie sees the long, narrow cylinder and the handle and the lever and the arrow-like shape at one end.

"Come!" Helena says. "Let's go see if it works, shall we?"

They bundle Christina into a pram and walk down the road to a nearby park, near-deserted in the dusk; Sophie sees Helena's pink and yellow like sunset.

Helena stops them on one side of a field where, during the day, children play football. She lifts her device with one hand and points it at an oak tree some distance away. Without warning, she jerks on the lever. The arrow flies forward but the device leaps backward, colliding with Helena's shoulder. Still, the arrow flies true, pulling behind it a length of cable until it fastens itself in the old tree's limbs.

And Helena grins now, positively glows, despite the new tear in the shoulder of her dress.

"It will need some adjusting," she says, "but what a device, don't you think?"

"I do," Sophie says.

On Helena's suggestion, Sophie pushes the pram a short distance away down the path before Helena pushes on the lever again and the cable, with its arrow-head, looses itself from the tree and flies back into its receptacle.

"I shall have to make adjustments to the tension to soften the recoil," she says, as they walk home. "A child could not use this safely. I would like for a child to be able to use it in case of emergency."

"Why would a child need a grappler, Helena?"

"If he lived on the third floor of a building of flats that were on fire, perhaps," she says, and flares again in red, just for an instant.

They walk in silence until the red abates. Then Helena says: "Grappler. What a wonderful word for this device!"

By the time they've returned to the house, the days of near-sleeplessness and single-minded work have settled on Helena's shoulders. She is barely undressed before she collapses into bed.

Sophie pauses at her workbench to look at the schematics, sketched out on note-paper and scattered across the surface. The design is impressive, she thinks. But if the internal mechanism were turned backward, the compression spring replaced with an extension spring, the release could be set with a small trigger instead of such a large lever, and the recoil adjusted appropriately.

"Where did you learn to think like this?" Helena asks, her tone almost sceptical, four days later when they stand together over her work bench and Sophie offers her suggestions. Helena slept for almost two days, and spent the third quietly in the drawing room, recuperating, and she is less frantic, now, than she'd been.

Sophie replies, "I might ask you the same thing, Helena."

Sophie doesn't often smile, she knows, but she does now, and it brings forth from Helena the most guileless of grins, like that of a child whose mother has complimented her drawing and propped it beside the mirror of her vanity.

 

///

 

McGivens decides Helena is ready far before the six-month window expires.

He comes to her in the drawing room while she's reading the morning newspaper. He clears his throat to get her attention and before he can blink she has leapt across the room at him, folding his arm behind his back and pinning his wrist painfully.  
  
"Well done, Miss Wells," he says, and winces when she presses harder against his hand.

"How did you get in here," she snarls back.

"I'm a man of many skills," he says. "Your brother may have mentioned to expect me at some point—" his voice cracks up an octave as she presses harder still.

"He has not," she says, and he hears her stepping slightly closer to his back. "Give me a good reason not to break your wrist right now, like the intruder you are," she breathes.

McGivens exhales roughly and decides that this has gone on quite long enough. With a quick duck and turn of his hips he nudges her back; her grip loosens on his wrist and he twists against her arm to free himself and shove her, just lightly, away.

She gapes at him.

"Sophie!" he calls quickly, before she can find her words again. Immediately he hears footsteps coming from the kitchen and the woman appears in the doorway.

"Barnabas," she says. "I didn't know to expect you today."

Helena wheels around and looks at her, then glances back at McGivens over her shoulder. "Sophie—"

"It's fine, Helena," Sophie says. "He's here to talk to you."

Helena spins back around. "To talk to me… Our lack of conversation at the hospital failed to provide you with a sufficient lack of information about me?"

McGivens lets his lip quirk. "We conversed more than you know," he says. "Please, sit, Miss Wells."

She swallows and moves to sit on the settee. McGivens takes the leather chesterfield opposite her.

"I'm here to offer you an invitation to endless wonder," he says.

Helena's eyes narrow. "I'm far too old to believe in wonder, Mr. McGivens."

He lets out a full, deep-bellied laugh: she's far too young to think herself too old for much of anything. But then he sobers, because he's seen where she's been, and he knows that she has plenty of reason to feel that wonder does not exist.

"Let us call it the strangest and most fantastical science you could possibly imagine, then," he offers.

_That_ piques her interest. She straightens in her chair. "All right. I'm listening."

 

///

 

Caturanga knows, from McGivens' message, to expect Miss Wells some time today.  He tells the boy who works the bookshop to direct her through to the back. Then, in his office, he sets out the objects he needs: a chess set. A revolver. His typewriter, and the index cards for the warehouse catalogue. And a small handful of artifacts recently collected but not yet shelved: the rigging rope of the Mary Celeste, Edgar Allan Poe's quill and inkwell, a pair of Shakespeare's pantaloons, and a lone ruby taken from Queen Victoria's crown jewels. Then he sits down and begins to set the pieces out on his chess board.

Agent Crowley arrives thirty minutes later. "So that girl is coming today, is she?" he asks, in lieu of greeting.

"Miss Wells is coming, yes," Caturanga says. He leads with the queen's pawn for white, then turns the board around.

Crowley sniffs as he removes his coat and hangs it on the stand by the door. "I daresay old McGivens has gone soft," he scoffs. "A female agent. Next he'll be telling us to hire a negro."

"Now, now, Mr. Crowley." Caturanga ponders, then responds with the bishop's pawn and turns the board again. "There have been female Warehouse employees since Warehouse 2, you know that, and Europeans make up a minority of the sum total of all historical agents. People of all sexes and races can create artifacts."

"And if we're chasing a dangerous artifact, am I to put my own life on the line to protect the lady's? Heaven knows she'll be useless in a foot-chase, all petticoats and parasols."

Caturanga leans closer to his board and plays the king's knight before rotating again. "Haven't you some inventory to complete, Agent Crowley? If you've completed your list, I can give you a new one."

"Yes, yes," Crowley says.

Caturanga doesn't look up as he hears Crowley dial the code to open the door and descend the steps into the stacks.

When Miss Wells does arrive, an hour later, his game with himself is incomplete. He watches her move around the space, looks to see which of his items draw her eyes, and her touch. He watches her drift toward the Mary Celeste's rope, then the inkwell. She trails her fingers over the card catalogue. She avoids the pistol, then looks down at his chess game, but she notices all of the items, notices every little thing.

_Outstanding_ , he thinks.

As if on cue, the thick sent of apples wafts through the room, so strong that he resists the urge to perk his nose like a hound to take it in.

"What do you smell?" he asks.

Her eyes flit up and to the left – she's accessing a memory. For a fraction of her second her face falls but then it perks again, into a full, if slightly nervous, smile. "Apples?"

Caturanga grins. "The Warehouse likes you."

She cocks her head at him, indulgently, like he might be mad. That's fair. They all do, at first. But still she smiles, and he knows he must congratulate young Wolcott on his eye for prospective agents, and he must thank old Barnabas for making such an excellent choice. 

He stands straighter before her and sweeps his arms out. "Welcome to Warehouse 12."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kosan dislikes holding meetings at Ted's Diner. It belies the gravitas of the regents' position and of the decision they are here to make, he thinks. But its proximity to the warehouse and its highly-capable agents, and the extraordinary anonymity of the setting, makes it appropriate for an urgent, hurriedly-called meeting like this one.

Every regent has, in their hands, a copy of H.G. Wells's file from Warehouse 12. They have a copy of Agent Neilson's report surrounding Ms. Wells's debronzing, and his perception of her connection to the questionable activities of one James MacPherson (deceased). And they have digital copies of Agent Bering's scrupulously-detailed report on her engagements with Ms. Wells, emailed from the Philadelphia airport during the layover on their return from Russia.

"So," Kosan says, "What are your impressions?"

"It's hard to know what to make of Nielsen and Bering's reports," Nagabe says. "Artie's never been a neutral voice when it comes to anything related to MacPherson, and Agent Bering is clearly fond of her."

Kuti says, "I'm more inclined to trust Bering on this one. She hasn't got anything to gain by throwing her weight behind Wells. It seems there are fewer ulterior motives at play."

Ted cocks an eyebrow. "Except that they're clearly friends. Or at least friendly."

Kuti shrugs. "Is being friends with a current agent reason to write off a prospective agent?"

"I'm just saying we need to consider that as context for understanding Bering's report," Ted says.

"We must not forget Bering's background," Wesson says. "She knows the impacts of poor planning and bad judgment even when artifacts _aren't_ involved. We didn't hire her for her intuition, we hired her for her clear and rational processing, which, we all know, has been forged in fire."

A hum of assent drifts through the assembled regents.

Kosan turns to Petrov, who slouches in his customary seat near the door. "Tell us about your interactions with her in Russia."

Petrov shrugs. "Conflicted. She pulled a gun."

Another noise through the group, this time a gasp.

"On herself, not on me," he clarifies. He sits up taller. "She strikes me as a very lonely person. I don't think she has any particular fondness for the Warehouse—she made reference to it being a dishonest organization—but I think she simply wants a place to belong." He passes his hands over his face and sighs. "We have always chosen agents who lack substantive networks of friends and family in the hope that they will build those networks here, together, and that it will strengthen their commitment to the purpose of the Warehouse. She is the quintessential specimen of a person without ties, who is likely desperate to make them."

"She lacks ties because she was bronzed!" Ted sputters. "Have we forgotten that she was subject to the most severe punishment that the Warehouse metes out? And that someone expunged her record so we don’t know why it happened?"

"Let's ask her," Kuti says. The wide eyes of every agent spin to stare at her. She shrugs. "What? She's here, isn't she?"

Nagabe nods. "I agree. Let's ask her."

The hum through the room this time is one of assent.

"Very well," Kosan says.

Three bodyguards follow him to the back of the store. He stops in front of a blank wall. Ted had moved the tables out of the way earlier, following the hurried announcement that they needed use of the cell. From his pocket he retrieves a key – it matches Chubb's original detector lock—and traces a door-sized rectangle against the plaster. The wall within the rectangle disappears to reveal a small, white-walled room. It lacks furniture. H.G. Wells kneels in the middle of the square, white floor. She looks up at him slowly, then licks her lips and takes a deep, shaky breath as she begins to stand.

"There's a great difference between being kept in a prison with a locked door and one with no door at all," she says. "Not for the first time, I wish the Warehouse would make more use of the former, and less of the latter."

"I do understand, Miss Wells, but I’m given to believe that no lock exists that can hold you."

She lets out a dry laugh. "That was true in 1900," she says. "If it's still true today, I must despair for civilization's lack of scientific progress."

One bodyguard takes hold of her wrists and another binds them with three zip-ties, just to be safe. They lead her by the elbows to the gathered regents, where Ted gestures toward a bar stool she has pulled over for her, so she can sit high, where everyone can see her clearly. Kosan, meanwhile, presses the key to the wall beside the opening and watches the makeshift doorway close itself over. As he walks back to the group, to his central seat in a wooden diner chair, he watches Wells draw her shoulders up and lift her chin, her slightly bedraggled air apparently left behind in the cell.

_She recovers quickly_ , he thinks. _That, at least, is commendable._

"Tell us why you were bronzed," Kuti says, without preamble. She has never had patience of small talk or the pleasantries of introductions.

Wells swallows, then glances up and to the right, and levels her gaze directly at the source of the question.

"You know about my daughter," she says. Kuti nods.

"I was a grieving mother," Wells says quietly. "I was surrounded every day by the greatest wonders of the world, and yet could find nothing to bring my daughter back to me. I had a colleague—a dear friend. A very dear friend. Who died as a result of my single-mindedness and my despair. But that didn't stop me: I wanted to try again. I had killed an innocent in my quest to save my daughter's life, and still, I wanted to try again. I was motivated by… by an incomprehensible mania, I felt. Nothing else in the world mattered."

"We do irrational things for our children." That's Lattimer. It's the first thing she's said all meeting. Wells's gaze leaps over to where she sits, in the corner, and she smiles, a little.

"We do," Wells says. "But I knew I was dangerously irrational. In a moment of lucidity, I begged Caturanga—my mentor—I begged him for relief from my grief. I begged to be allowed to start over."

"You asked to be bronzed," Lattimer fills in, wide-eyed.

"Not at first," Wells says. She looks down. "I asked for the Janus Coin, but the regents at the time refused. They said they could not, in good conscience, wipe my intellect from the planet. They said—ironically, perhaps--that my mind had too much to offer. So I asked for the bronzer, hoping to start anew in a better future.

Nagabe's eyes widen. "You knew you'd be conscious."

Wells nods. "I needed to be. To truly start anew, I couldn't hide from my grief. I needed to confront it. And what could I do with my time in the bronze but confront my grief?"

"You might never have been debronzed," Nagabe says.

 Wells' eyes widen. "I—I asked that a note be put in my file for me to be released in a hundred and fifty years?"

"There's no such note in your file," says Kosan.

Wells lets out a dry chuckle and shakes her head. "I do hope that the Warehouse's system of bureaucracy has improved over the past century, then."

Lattimer laughs at that. "Not if Artie has anything to say about it, but we've got a girl on the task."

Over the ensuing chuckles, Ted loudly says, "Why did you kill MacPherson?"

Wells's smile drops immediately. "I am only too well-acquainted with the dangers of single-mindedness, and he was as single-minded as a person can be. He was quite happy to kill all of your agents, and he would quite happily have killed me once my usefulness had expired."

"Speaking of our agents," Kosan says, "Agent Bering has written quite a potent report requesting leniency in our treatment of you."

Wells's face erupts in a grin so guileless, it seems out-of-place on the face of a grown woman. "She has?" she asks.

Kosan nods. "She speaks highly of your skills at deductive reasoning, your ability to work under pressure with limited resources, and your strengths as a teammate."

Wells is still grinning. "And her words—they're of value to you?"

"Of course," Kosan nods. "She's an excellent agent."

Wells shakes her head, disbelieving. "I knew I'd wake in a better time. I knew it. Sophie would be so pleased." She turns on her stool to face Kosan squarely, now. "I was always a good agent. I told My—Agent Bering that, and I'm telling you now. I'm a good agent."

"That may be the case, but that doesn't mean we should trust you with the world's most dangerous objects," Kosan says. He nods at the guards where they hover close to the door. "We'll need a little more time to deliberate. So, if you don't mind…"

The guards grasp her by each elbow and she steps awkwardly down from the stool with her hands still bound. Kosan leads them back toward the blank wall, Chubb's key in his hand.

"Wait," Wells says. He turns to look at her. "Please. Is there… is there any alternative to the room without doors?"

"I'm afraid not," Kosan says.

He watches her look down and close her eyes. Her shoulders droop for just a second, infinitesimally, before she pulls them back up, and he's surprised to find himself feeling guilty.

"We'll free your wrists," he says.

"Let's get on with it," she says brusquely. "The sooner I go back in there, the sooner I can come out again."

She stands perfectly straight in the center of the small room, her arms crossed over her chest. Kosan watches her back as the wall closes up behind her.

 

///

 

The deliberations take ninety minutes, and then every regent but Kosan makes their vote. Five of the regents favor reinstating her. Four favor leaving her free but prohibiting any contact with the Warehouse. And three favor re-bronzing her.

Kosan spends another thirty minutes reviewing the material before him and replaying Wells's answers to their questions in his mind. Then he pulls the key from his pocket and returns to the rear wall. The guards move to follow him, but he waves them away.

When he opens the wall, he finds her propped on her wrists on the floor, her clothing looking even more rumpled, and blinking furiously. He wonders if she'd been asleep.

He steps into the room and reaches a hand down to her. She takes it, and he pulls her to her feet.

"Welcome to Warehouse 13, Agent Wells."


	7. Certain Personal Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Right, well. You're—I mean, it's weird. You're here. H.G. Wells. Your books meant…" Myka shakes her head. She is staring at the floor, at the worn woven pattern of the carpet, so she forces her gaze up, to meet the bemused gaze of Helena Wells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blows dust off fic*
> 
> Whew! I'm back. And I won't patronize you, dear readers, with lame stories about why I've been slow to update this fic, though I will assure you that it's not abandoned and I'm expecting a much, much shorter gap between this chapter's publication and the next. 
> 
> Oh, and an announcement: I've decided to turn this into a fix-it. It will keep to canon through the end of S5, and then make it all better in the end. 
> 
> As usual, all feedback -- positive and constructive -- is always treasured.

Vincent finds Rudyard burrowed in the library, where he is wont to hide to escape his inventory duties.

"Good morning, Agent Crowley," Rudyard says downward into the pages of the book.

Vincent pulls back the next chair and drops into it with the gracelessness of a man of twice his size and half his breeding. "I've been re-assigned to the Ripper case," he says, turning his hat in his hands.

Rudyard looks up at that. "Has there been another murder?"

"No. Not that we know of, anyway, though who knows, with a sneaky bugger like that." Vincent sighs and tosses the hat onto the table. “No,” he huffs, “Caturanga seems to think that this, of all cases, is the one we should use to train that girl he’s convinced McGivens to hire.”

Rudyard closes his book and sits up straighter, slipping his spectacles from his nose to polish them with his handkerchief. “I do wish our dear raja had waited until I was at least a year out of apprenticeship before beginning to destroy our fine institution,” he says, holding his lenses up to the light and squinting at them.

“As do I, my boy.” Vincent fixes his gaze on the table’s surface a few feet in front of him and shakes his head like a disappointed schoolteacher. “They’ve violated a half-dozen policies to bring her in. According to the manual we’re not supposed to have more than one probationary Agent on staff at a time, and Wolcott’s got another three months before he’s eligible for review. She’s got no experience in law enforcement, investigation, or the military, of course—how could she? And do you know, Rudyard, according to my research it seems she may have actually spent time in _Bedlam_.”

“Now, now, Agent Crowley, isn’t idle gossip a pastime beneath your stature?” McShane’s thick Cockney jostles both men out of their conversation and Vincent wheels around in his chair to face the door. McShane, enormous as he is, fills the entire doorway, one thick hand resting on the frame. He was an infantryman before he was recruited to the Warehouse, Vincent knows. A common footsoldier.

“You’d know a thing or two about what’s beneath my stature, now, wouldn’t you?” Vincent sneers, because who is he, _who_ is _he_ to question a conversation between Vincent and Kipling, _really_.

But McShane only chuckles, his half-smile pulling across his well-groomed cheek. “Times is changing, Agent Crowley, and you’d best adapt or you’ll be left behind.” He gestures back over his shoulder with his chin. “Caturanga sent me to fetch you. That new agent’s ready to go and you wouldn’t want to keep a lady waiting, now, would you?”

Vincent glances over at Rudyard, who is attempting to conceal a smirk behind a press of fingers over his lips.

“No,” Vincent sighs, “I wouldn’t.”

“Good luck in the chase,” Kipling says as Vincent stands and straightens his jacket.

“Good luck indeed. Next time, Agent Kipling, I’ll be passing her off to you.” Vincent shakes his head and follows McShane back out into the stacks of the Warehouse.

 

//

 

“Your credentials.” Caturanga holds in his outstretched hand a leather wallet which Miss Wells eyes warily before taking it into her palm. He watches her open it, trace the silver star there with her fingertip and then polish it with the cuff of her fingerless glove.

“H. G. Wells, Scotland Yard,” she says quietly, and then looks up at him. “Will anyone truly believe I’m from Scotland Yard?”

“Well, you have the credentials to prove it, now, don’t you?” Caturanga says with a grand outward gesture of his palms. “Though if you take issue with the use of ‘H.G.’ rather than ‘Helena,’ I’m afraid you’ll have to take it up with Mr. McGivens. He expressed concern that evidence or records requests filed by a person with a woman’s name might draw unwanted scrutiny from the staff at the Yard, or in the Army, which might jeopardize the secrecy of our little endeavour.”

Miss Wells smiles and shakes her head, bemused. She closes the wallet and tucks it into the inside pocket of her coat but she looks up at Caturanga, eyes sparkling. “H.G. Wells, writer of stories and textbooks, Agent in Her Majesty’s service,” she says. “It feels as though we’ve created a fictitious person. That I am merely his executor, creating things to exist in his name.”

“And yet I see her before me as we speak,” Caturanga replies, with a theatrical bow.

She opens her mouth to respond but is interrupted by the opening of the door that leads to the Warehouse stacks. Her gaze shifts up, over Caturanga’s shoulder, and Caturanga turns around. It’s Crowley, who, Caturanga is pleased to note, is doing a better-than-usual job of concealing his disdain. Crowley nods at him in officious greeting and then smiles over his shoulder at the lady. “Miss Wells, I do presume? Agent Victor Crowley,” he says, with a tip of his head, and Caturanga turns and steps out of the path of their greeting.

Wells quirks her lip and arches her brow. “It’s a pleasure, Agent Crowley. Though—forgive me— _Agent_ Wells would be my official form of address here, would it not?”

Caturanga knows Crowley well and Wells almost not at all, but standing between them now he feels all the energy of a crowd awaiting the start of a fireworks show, the excitement at the promise of a spectacle tempered by the moderate fear of the explosion. They are staring at each other across the room like knights at opposite ends of a joust.

“Well, _Agent_ Wells,” Crowley finally says through gritted teeth, “shall we be on our way?”

Wells’ lip quirks and she nods ever-so-slightly. Cocky, Caturanga thinks, and he can barely contain his chuckle.

“I’m ready when you are, Agent Crowley,” she says.

“Let’s go then,” Crowley replies, gesturing toward the door, and there is no mistaking the aggression with which he thumps his hat onto his head as he follows her out.

 

//

 

“Scotland Yard, please,” Vincent says to the driver as he follows Miss—pardon me, _Agent_ —Wells into the cab, and she instantly leans forward and says, “No, I do apologize, but we’d like to go to Whitechapel.”

The driver half turns back toward them in his seat. “Well, which is it going to be, then?”

“Scotland Yard,” Vincent says, at the same moment when Wells says “Whitechapel,” and the cabbie throws up his hands and says, “If you wouldn’t mind making up your minds, then?”

“Agent Wells,” Vincent says slowly, “reviewing the evidence is an important first step in any re-opened investigation of this sort.”

“Agent Crowley,” Wells replies just as slowly, “I have already seen the evidence file, as I presume you have as well. What purpose is there to re-invent the wheel?”

“What purpose is there to go to Whitechapel?” Vincent retorts.

“To speak to the women there, surely?”

Vincent blinks at her, and blinks again, because what Wells expects to learn about an artifact from a gaggle of streetwalkers he cannot begin to fathom.

Vincent takes a deep breath to calm his nerves and explains, as calmly as he can, “Those women have never encountered the artefact. If they had, they wouldn’t be here to tell us about it.”

“But they may have encountered the killer,” she says.

“The killer is not our business. The artefact is our business.”

“Aren’t we to assume that the killer most likely has the artefact?”

“Assumptions are dangerous in our line of work, Agent Wells,” Vincent grits out. “And if the killer has the artefact, we must do our best to determine what the artefact is before we’re confronted with it in person.”

The cabbie leans down from his bench and says, “I’ll be asking an extra tuppence for this waiting, guv.”

Vincent looks Wells right in the eyes as he say firmly, to the cabbie, “Scotland. Yard. Please.”

She blinks back at him once, twice, then inclines her head in acquiescence. The driver picks up his reins and the cab jerks into motion. “But we will go to Whitechapel to speak to those women, or I will do it alone,” she says.

Vincent sighs, again. He can’t help himself. “Very well,” he says.

They don’t speak to one another through the twenty-minute ride to Scotland Yard. The officer at the desk makes incredulous eyes at Wells—who, Vincent notes, is impressively impassive as she stares evenly back at him—and then leads them into a small room, empty of all but a table and chairs. A secretary delivers an evidence box which Vincent empties onto the table and they talk as little as possible as they pore over notes, photographs, drawings, small items of evidence.

An hour passes. Then another. And then—

“You were right,” she says.

Vincent looks up and she’s looking back at him. Some of the hair has come loose from her chignon and her eyes are reddened from the strain of the work. He waits.

“There were things I didn’t remember from when I saw these before,” she says, “and other things I failed to notice the first time.”

Vincent sniffs. He appreciates a person who can admit when she's wrong, and he’s far too civilized to punish such behaviour by gloating.

“You’ve noticed something, then?”

“I’ve noticed something, but that’s not to say it’s something that others haven’t noticed before.” She begins to shift through the papers scattered haphazardly about the table, retrieving the handful of photographs.

"When Agent Wolcott came to meet with me when I was—" she clears her throat—"er, before, I pointed out these markings on the skin of the victims. Victims of arsenic poisoning often get similar markings, but there was no arsenic in the toxin tests."

Wolcott pointed out those marks to Vincent several months ago, so Vincent says, "Yes, we have hypothesized an artefact that mimics the actions of arsenic."

She sat back, then, and sloppily pushed the loose strands of her hair away from her face to look up at him. "But then why slash their throats? Why the vile evisceration of their bodies, if they have already been killed by poison? And you know, I keep thinking: there must be women this bugger has attacked unsuccessfully. There must be information that circulates between women, warning one another about a character to avoid. If we combine that with the matter of the left- and right-handed wounds in the bodies—well. It's obvious, isn't it, when you think about it?"

Vincent slams his eyes shut as he resists the urge to roll them. "Enlighten me," he says.

"There may be multiple people involved in these murders, but there are almost undoubtedly multiple artifacts." She points to different spots on various photographs to illustrate: "One that triggers the arsenic reaction, one for the slashing, and one that somehow prevents the women from identifying and fleeing from the murderer when he approaches."

Vincent sinks against the back of his chair. Because she's right. She's right, of course, and somehow, the idea hadn't even occurred to him.

"We must go to Whitechapel at once," he says, and reaches for his hat. And Wells smiles at him, stands, drapes her scarf about her neck, and leads the way out the door.

 

//

 

Carlotta is nervous about her job, these days, what with that murderer running about. But there is a little boy what needs to eat and rent that needs paying and the thing she's learned, maybe a little late, is once you start this job you're stuck in it, because people don't want you to do other things no more.

Truth is, she doesn't hate it. It gives her enough money to eat. She can take a day off whenever she wants to, so long as she's got enough money stowed away. She's careful with her money. And since they changed the laws a few years back, she ain't had so much to worry about with the police.

But there's police walking up to her now. She can tell it, just by the way they walk. Except—is that a woman?

"A word, if you please, madam," says the man, and he's looking straight at her face but not quite into her eyes.

"I know the law," Carlotta retorts. "You can't just cart me away no more, just because you think I might be sick or something."

"Nobody will be carting anybody anywhere, I assure you." It's the woman talking now, and she pulls a fancy-looking leather pocketbook out of her coat. She opens it and there's a shiny police medallion inside. "We're here to investigate the recent murders."

Carlotta laughs loud before she can stop herself. "You are, are you? Where've you been these past months with nothing happening, then? Where've the coppers been while we've been afraid over here?"

"We're a different branch of law enforcement, madam," says the man. His lip twitches and it makes his moustache look like a rodent on his lip, and Carlotta laughs again.

"I'll tell you what," Carlotta says, tightening her shawl around her shoulders, "you're never going to find that murderer."

The woman takes a step closer. "Why do you say that?"

"Because we've got our own people 'round here who been doing a search of their own. Because our people knows our people and our areas and you police – well, I beg your pardon but you police don't come to the east end very often to take care of the problems we got over here."

The woman is looking at her askance, her head tipped a little to the side, and Carlotta feels like a bug pinned under glass.

"What is your name?" the woman asks, and Carlotta just blinks back at her, because what, does she think she's _stupid_ or something? What Carlotta does isn't illegal but it's quite unpopular.

The lady smiles and glances down before saying "My name is Helena." Carlotta just looks back at her, then glances at the man, who's a pace back and looks half like his head might explode and half like—like—

Carlotta just barely keeps down her own snicker as she spies the way the other officer looks at the lady officer. Agent. Police-woman. There's nothing there, yet, she can tell. But he wants there to be, despite that wedding band on his finger. _Despite_ , Carlotta thinks, _because the lady doesn't have a ring of her own._

"Listen," Carlotta says, finally. "There's no pattern. There's no nothing. There ain't been nobody around who ain't been around before. Everyone's usual. The killer? He's a ghost." Carlotta crosses her arms over her chest, to protect it.

The lady Agent—Helena—reaches across, pries one of Carlotta's hands hand away from the other elbow and squeezes it between both of hers. "Thank you," she says. And then: "Please stay safe, for the sake of your child."

Carlotta's eyes widen.

"—and if you have any additional information, please contact Scotland Yard and leave a message for Agents Wells and Crowley. I'll see to it you're reimbursed for any expenses."

Carlotta nods, but she's only half heard the last of that because she knows she never said nothing about her little boy. The woman—Helena—turns to leave, but before she can move more than two paces, the man steps forward and pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and one of those modern, fancy cartridge pens.

“Here,” he says, leaning down and scribbling something. “If you would like… help… with your lifestyle… you can go here.” He hands her the paper and she takes it but she doesn’t look at it. She blinks back at him and fights to keep her eyebrows from crawling up her face, incredulous.

“There’s a woman, there, a member of the congregation, who works with… with women like you. She’s quite lovely. You might like her.”

“All right,” Carlotta says, but she doesn’t look down at the address.

He tips his head at her, stiffly, and then wheels on his heel to follow Helena out toward Church street.

 

//

 

“Well, you’ve just made a right idiot of yourself,” Helena says petulantly as she strides away, two steps ahead of Vincent. “What the blazes did you think you were doing?”

“What did I think I was doing?” Vincent sputters. “I was trying to help the poor woman!”

“You behaved like a patronizing fool.”

“A patronizing fool?” he barks. “Is it patronizing to offer a woman information to better her stature?”

“And I suppose you would offer the same altruistic guidance to a leather tanner? Or a carnival worker?” she throws over her shoulder.

…he has no response for that. Because she’s right. Of course he wouldn’t. But it isn’t the same, either, it isn’t, because—

“And she won’t have any use for that note, anyway,” Helena’s rant slices through his inner monologue.

Vincent shakes his head. “Well, now, that’s awfully patronizing of _you_ to say, isn’t it?”

“Hardly.” Helena wheels around on her heel so quickly that Vincent nearly walks into her. “Look at your right hand,” she says.

Vincent looks at his hand and sees the ink-stains from his cartridge pen.

“And mine,” Helena says, holding up her right hand. “The pattern’s a little different, of course, since I use an inkwell instead of one of your modern contraptions. But it’s the same.”

“So she had no ink-stains on her hand,” Vincent says. “That means that she doesn’t write often. It doesn’t mean she’s unable, or that she can’t read.”

“You pulled out an expensive piece of new technology and used it to write her a message,” Helena retorts. “And she didn’t look at it. Not so much as a glance.” She spins on her heel and walks toward the curb, raising a hand to flag down a hansom. “She can’t read,” Helena says. “I’d bet five pounds on it.”

“None of this explains what you think you just accomplished with that woman,” he says, as he settles into the bench beside her.

"Occam's razor, my good fellow," Wells says, "there are multiple murderers using the same artifact or artifacts to commit these crimes."

"Occam's razor rarely applies at the Warehouse," Vincent retorts, but he realizes, somewhat begrudgingly, that she’s probably right.

 

//

 

Sophie loves to receive handwritten messages. Handwritten messages, you see, retain the smallest slice of the aura or the person who wrote it, at the time when they wrote it.

She tells nobody about this—even the people of the Warehouse, whose connection with her family spans centuries, possibly as far back as Warehouse 2. It is, she thinks, one of the few secrets truly contained within the small group who share the gift.

Notes from Caturanga are especially lovely, because no matter their content, the word "Sophie"—her name, penned at the top of the page—is tinted purple.

He does not know that she knows how he feels about her. But she does know. And one day, when she feels further removed from the passing of her late husband, when she has seen young Helena and young Charles better settled in the world—she may approach him about it, about whether a widow and a long-standing bachelor, their salad days long behind them, might ease their solitude with one another.

But now, she thinks, the timing is not right. Not yet.

So she revels in the purple tint of her name, every time he writes it.

Today's note, delivered by a messenger boy, says, "I sent her out with Crowley. The excursion will be something of a test for both of them, I imagine."

Sophie smiles slightly, and shakes her head. Then she turns and walks to the kitchen, wondering whether Helena will come home hungry from the day's work, or whether she'll whisk Christina from the kitchen bassinet and disappear into her bedroom to work for hours on the latest of her projects.

 

//

 

Caturanga is tinkering with a light-pistol when Crowley and Wells return from their day's work.

"Multiple individuals," Crowley says, instead of greeting. "And multiple artefacts. This retrieval has more dimensions than we'd thought."

"Agent Wells's deductions, I presume?" Caturanga inquires, carefully wiping the excess lubricant from the head of the trigger hinge.

"Indeed," Crowley replies curtly, and sighs. "She's difficult, but she’s done quite well on her first day."

Caturanga stops his work and looks up at that, because Crowley never issues compliments, let alone to women, on the first day of their shared employment. Wells looks as shocked as he feels, eyes wide, head tilted back so she can look up at him. He glances down at her, sidelong, then up again, exaggeratedly, toward the ceiling on the other side of the room, and—

Well. He'd been afraid something like this might happen. It hasn’t happened yet, Caturanga can tell; the stiffness between them is too pronounced, the distance too practiced, but there is—there may be—a fledgling inkling of… something. Caturanga would have anticipated the problem to arise with Wolcott, or Kipling, or McShane—one of the single men closer to Wells’s age. But no—there is no mistaking the look in the eye of the older, married Crowley, and Wells' nervous smile. Caturanga sighs inwardly. Policing interpersonal relationships between agents only becomes his job if those relationships are combative, and this one, clearly, is not.

Not severely, at any rate.

Caturanga looks at Wells. "McShane is waiting for you in the front room. You've a task to complete."

"Yes, sir," she says, smiling; she bows her head a little in deference and ventures out of the room, leaving Crowley and Caturanga alone. Caturanga turns his gaze back to the scattered pieces of the light pistol across his table.

"Don't do anything foolish, Agent Crowley," Caturanga says, as he slides the newly-recharged copper into the pistol chamber and begins to screw it closed.

"Wouldn't dream of it, old friend," Crowley replies. Then he disappears through the door down to the Warehouse stacks, whistling.

Caturanga is surprised—but not caught off-guard—when Wells comes storming back into the room, revolver held out from her body between two hands, firmly but with disgust, as though she were returning a neighbour’s unwashed cat that had somehow escaped into her drawing room.

"This isn't what I signed up for," she says, depositing the gun on the table between them. "These regents of yours are gravely mistaken if they think I'm going to carry this."

Caturanga is taken aback. Usually, it's the opposite that he hears from his Agents: guns are everywhere, nowadays. If we haven't got them, what will we do if we're facing an afflicted person who has?

But a mere three decades prior, he'd followed the news of the rebellion in India. He knew he had uncles, cousins he'd never met, who were sepoys. He knew of the bloodshed. And then, a scant few years following, the war in America, where brother would shoot brother across a battlefield without knowing whom the bullet had hit.

"Guns have no place in a civilized society, sir," she says, and he can't help but agree. "There is always an alternative to killing."

When Caturanga stuns McShane with his light pistol, Wells's jaw drops, her eyes turn on him, the ferocious glare of one empassioned to protect innocents. For a moment, just a flash, he thinks of Crowley, and how un-innocent he is. How predisposed to judge a person's character on stereotype.

(When Crowley first came to the Warehouse, he asked Caturanga, "Do you not have a dot on your forehead because you're a Christian? Or is it because you simply want people to think you're a Christian?" When Caturanga answered, "My family is Jain," Crowley had scoffed. Things had improved since then, of course. Crowley's skills in inquisition and deductive reasoning made him an excellent Agent, and he was, if nothing else, open to abandoning even his most closely-held stereotypes as evidence mounted against them.)

Caturanga looks at Wells and sees a young person with potential, and, according to Sophie, a true goodness of heart beneath her somewhat tumultuous spirit. And for a moment he wonders if they have done the right thing, bringing her here, to the Warehouse, where all of that could be put at such phenomenal risk.

"My dear, do what you can to hold on to your principles," he says. "They'll serve you well."

She sits down opposite him. "That shouldn't be a problem, sir," she says, and the smile she gives him is almost patronizing.

He leans closer. "The Warehouse has a way of changing people—sometimes for the better, sometimes not. You'll see the world in unexpected ways."

She shakes her head and says, "I know who I am. The Warehouse won't change me."

And it's her confidence, her assuredness, which unnerves him, because he knows that it's the stiffest trees, the ones most unwilling to bend, that break in a tempest.

She turns her head to watch over her shoulder as Wolcott and Crowley cart McShane away to recover on the sofa in the next room, then looks back at Caturanga, her eyes inscrutable.

"Would you show me how that gun works?” she asks.

Caturanga grins and picks up his screwdriver to open the cartridge again. “It’s all in this piece of copper,” he says. “We charge it by setting it inside a bell jar alongside Benjamin Franklin’s key…”

She pulls her chair closer to him and leans in, and as he disassembles the pistol between his fingers he imagines he can see the inner cogs and wheels of her mind, turning and clicking and realigning to make space for these new ideas.

Ten minutes later, the copper is under its bell jar with Franklin’s key, and McShane has not yet reappeared.

"Well," Caturanga smiles at Helena, "Since you've bought yourself a reprieve on your target practice—do you play chess?"

 

//

 

When Helena comes home, she is a rainbow. Her aura cycles through colours faster than Sophie's eyes can register them; all she can read is chaos, energy, mania.

"Where is my daughter?" she says, too loudly.

"In her bassinet," Sophie replies, watching her warily from her place by the counter where she's elbow-deep in bread dough.

"Hell-ooo, my darling girl!" Helena exclaims, sweeping the baby out of her bed and tossing her, ever so slightly, into the air, catching her, and bringing her down for a kiss on the nose. Then, to Sophie: "I shall take her upstairs with me to nurse before I sit down to work on the biology book."

"Call for me if you need anything," Sophie says, but Helena has already left the room.

She will not sleep tonight, Sophie can tell. She will stay up all night, working on some project or another, and in the morning she will return to the Warehouse, her face sleek and angular and bright as a prism breaking a ray of light in the window.

Christina nurses less, now; she is beginning to move on to the mushy peas and carrots and soft breads that Sophie can prepare and provide. But Sophie takes some relief from the knowledge that though Helena will not sleep tonight, when she sits in her rocking chair and cradles young Christina to her breast, her colours will settle, at least for awhile.

 

* * *

 

 

Leena doesn't go into the B&B bedrooms very often. She's not really an innkeeper, strictly speaking, after all, and this place isn't really an inn. She's got other jobs to do at the Warehouse—cataloguing, reading artifact auras, keeping Artie from short-circuiting every piece of machinery in the place—and she tries to respect the agents' space.

But when the retrieval is long, like the one in Russia, she goes in, sometimes, just to vacuum and keep things from getting dusty.

That's what she's doing—dusting, iPod on, earbuds in, dancing to some old-school Otis Redding—when she accidentally jostles Myka's bookshelf and a piece of paper slips out from somewhere and drifts to the floor.

It's just a post-it; she doesn't think much about it until she flips it over and sees the handwritten note. The words could mean anything or they could mean nothing, but their aura—it’s strange, almost metallic, coppery. It is one of those colors that’s all the colors at once, depending on the angle of your head and how the light's hitting it.

She feels something tighten at the pit of her stomach because somebody, somewhere, has incredibly conflicted feelings about Myka Bering: longing, desire, lust; fear, resentment, bitterness.

Leena swallows and then flips the note in her hand, as though its blank back side might give her insight. Of course it doesn't. It won't.

She never did see where it fell from, so she puts it back on the edge of the shelf.

 

//

 

“So I just spoke to Artie,” Pete says. He’s got his feet up on his desk, gently tossing and catching JFK’s football.

Myka doesn’t look up from her paperwork. “That’s a thing we have to do in our job sometimes,” she replies.

Pete tosses, catches. “See, that attitude doesn’t help preserve this whole _détente_ thing you two are trying to cultivate.”

Myka doesn’t indulge him with a response.

“Other things that don’t help with the ceasefire:” toss, catch, “include writing a report for Mrs. Frederic and not telling him about it.” Toss—

Myka reaches out and snatches the football out of the air, slamming it down onto the desk. “You didn’t tell him, did you? Because preserving the _détente_ , as you call it, was my precise reason for _not_ telling him, so if you did, I swear to God—“

“Whoa! Un-bunch your panties, Mykes, I didn’t spill the beans, though I think the verbal gymnastics I had to do to get out of that mess might have impressed even you.”

Myka glares at him for a minute, then rolls her eyes and turns back to her paperwork, leaving the football on the desk. “A piece of the Titanic driftwood snapped off in transit and both pieces are still charged. Do you think that technically makes it a bifurcated artifact, now? Because the manual says—“

“You should tell him,” Pete says. He snatches the football off the desk beside her and holds it between his hands, resting his chin on one of the points. “Explain the situation. Spare yourself the heartache down the line.”

Myka slams her pen down on the table. “Don’t you need to go throw that thing?”

Pete glances at his watch. “Oh, yeah, in thirty seconds!” He jumps out of his chair, and tosses the football up, once more, and catches it. “But I’m serious, Mykes. Talk to him before it comes around to bite you in the ass.”

“Stop throwing that thing inside,” Myka says. “Manual says it’s strong enough to break a hole in the Warehouse roof.”

 

//

 

Myka is reading on her bed when her phone does not buzz. It doesn't buzz but she looks at it anyway.

She's been doing that sort of compulsively ever since she got home from Russia, even though she knows better than to expect to get anything while H.G. is in Regent custody.

The problem is that Myka has never liked not-knowing. She's never liked not-knowing anything at all, really. Part of it is just her curious nature—she knows that (she likes books best, sure, but the Wikipedia app is the only reason to keep a smartphone as far as she's concerned). But she'll admit she's kind of a control freak, too.

(On her honest days, she'll admit that the control freak part grew exponentially after Sam.)

(There are a lot of parts of her life that she divides into before-Sam and after-Sam categories.)

So Helena is out there, somewhere, and she’s a question mark. What’s become of her is a question mark. What she’s doing is a question mark.

Her motives, her intentions—all question marks. And Myka doesn’t like question marks.

(…don’t think for a minute she doesn’t know how close she came to having to further divide her life into before-Claudia and after-Claudia.)

When Helena walks into Artie's office, a free woman

(Don’t think for a minute she doesn’t know that she gambled on H.G. Wells once already. She bet everything—the whole farm and all the cattle.)

(Don't think for a minute she doesn't remember, every time Claudia walks into a room, just how much she won.)

 

//

 

When H.G. Wells walks into his office, hands clasped behind her back and chin tucked like she just _knows_ she got away with something, Artie is irritated.

It's when he sees Myka's face its wide grin and curled-up eyes that he's never seen her give to anybody when they first walk into a room – that's when he's angry.

He's worked at the Warehouse a long time. Decades. The last person to work at the Warehouse for as long as he has was Caturanga back at twelve, and—

Goddammit, she would have known him, too, wouldn't she?

But Artie has worked at the Warehouse for decades and he knows that trust and mutual respect is what makes or breaks a team, and H.G. Wells began sewing discord in _this_ team before any of them even knew she was out of the bronze. And there's Myka, looking happier to see her than she ever is when she sees anybody, having _bent the rules_ to go to _Mrs. Frederic behind his back_ and he thinks: Wells, your appearance here will do nothing but break things.

She will break Artie's fragile new team as surely as she broke what was left of his old one.

But if H.G. Wells is the hammer, then Myka is the weakest link, porous and pliable and easily broken under a firm blow, and right now he can't stand the sight of either of them.

 

//

 

They ride back to the B&B in silence. Pete drives, Myka sits shotgun, Claudia and Helena in the back seat. From where she's sitting, Myka can't see Claudia at all without turning all the way around; she can see half of Helena's face, though, reflected in the side-view mirror. She is looking out the window, watching the badlands roll by.

Nobody says anything until they get into the house, when Claudia turns to Pete and says, "Call of Duty?" and Pete replies "Hell yes," and just like that, Myka and Helena are awkwardly, idly, left alone in the front hallway.

“Call of Duty?” Helena asks. “I would have thought that would have been a topic for the Warehouse, not the boarding house?”

Myka barks out a laugh before she can stop herself, then presses her fingers to her lips and turns rueful eyes toward Helena, who blinks blankly back at her for a moment before twisting her features into a smirk.

“I’ve misunderstood something,” she says.

Myka nods. “’Call of Duty’ is a video game.”

“A video game,” Helena echoes. “I’ve heard of these things, but I don’t know that I’ve ever actually seen one.”

“Well, there’s your way in with Pete and Claudia, that’s for sure. Just ask them. They’ll show you.”

As if on cue, the sound of gunfire echoes down the stairs, making Helena jump, and then stand there, blinking, in the direction of the sound.

“It’s a war game?” Myka offers, and Helena just nods dumbly. And then her whole body twitches, as though someone has shaken her, and she turns to Myka and grins and says, “Well, do I get a room in this establishment, then?”

Myka doesn’t know how to read what just happened, but she smiles and says, “I mean, I would assume so. Leave your bag here for now; let’s go find Leena.”

 

//

 

The moment H.G. Wells steps into the kitchen behind Myka, the moment Leena turns to look at her, is the moment that Leena knows that H.G. Wells wrote that note that Myka kept. H.G.'s aura is metallic; it would reflect its surroundings if its color had anything to do with light refraction. She is nervous. Hopeful. And afraid.

Myka is canary-yellow, right now: giddy, amped up, and nervous. But she’s grinning like a little girl standing next to her favorite celebrity, so Leena just says, “Pleased to meet you,” and, “come, let me show you your room.”

 

//

 

Helena's room is around the corner from Pete's and Myka’s rooms, past the bathroom.

"There are towels for you on the bed, and if you need anything, like a toothbrush or whatever, you just let me know, okay?" Leena had asked. Helena had half-smiled and nodded once, and her eyes had followed Leena as she ducked back out the door.

And now, here they are, standing side by side, Myka with her hands awkwardly pressed into her hip pockets, and Helena with her fingers wrapped tightly around the still-extended pull handle of her small suitcase. Myka doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, she's sure of it, but for a moment she's overcome by the sight of Helena's smallness, clutching her possessions with the ferocity of a child clutching a security blanket, eyes flitting from the thin rug over the worn hardwood, to the wooden sleigh bed, to the battered oak desk in the corner with its ergonomic chair. She finds herself wanting to tuck Helena into herself, to wrap her own body around Helena's and say, "Here. It's okay. You can relax for awhile."

She says, "How long have you been living out of that suitcase?"

Helena smiles and meets her eyes. "How long has it been since I came out of the bronze?"

"Really?" Myka shakes her head, surprised, and palms the back of her neck. "One of these days soon, we could, maybe, go shopping or something. If you want."

"Shopping?" Helena asks.

"Yeah. For, you know, clothes, and maybe some things for the room…"

Helena smiles, and hums, and glances down, and then she walks to the closet and pulls open the stiff folding door.

"I used to crave the latest, most progressive fashions," she says, as she crouches down to unzip her suitcase. "I wore trousers, and people stared at me in the street. Loose, flowing things they were, very nearly like a skirt. And now…" She pulls out a pair of skinny jeans and gestures toward Myka with them as she stands up and reaches for a hanger. Myka chuckles.

"But now," Helena says, "after so much time spent devoid of all possessions, I find that I crave very little." She's hanging a blouse, now: plain and blue. "It's not even that there is little that I desire, but rather that I desire to have little. The… simplicity. It suits me."

Myka nods vigorously, and then realizes she must look ridiculous and forces herself to stop. "Right," she says. "I get that. I—of course."

Of its own volition, apparently, Myka's right foot steps closer to Helena. Then her left foot, the traitor, follows, and the right leads again, and suddenly Myka is standing beside Helena, and then she is crouching beside Helena, and then she says, "I can't even begin to imagine what that experience must have felt like."

"That experience? You'll have to be clearer," Helena says dryly, as she sets a pair of boots on the floor, against the closet wall.

"The bronze. Your grief."

"I did, indeed, experience grief, and the bronze," Helena says, too loud, and Myka knows the sound of forced joviality when she hears it; she used it herself, more times than she can count, when teachers said "How was your weekend?" when she was a kid, or when well-wishers said "How are you holding up?" after Sam.

Myka swallows. "We can get you help. If you need it, I mean."

"Help?" Helena wonders, intentionally nonchalant, as she zips the empty suitcase closed again.

"To deal with… things. The bronze. Your daughter." Myka is palming her neck again, and it's a nervous tic, she knows it, but she lets herself do it anyway, because she _is_ nervous. "Doctors. Artie told me once there used to be a Warehouse psychologist… maybe it's time we get another one."

Helena turns to her and offers a tight-lipped smile. "Help, is it?" she says. "Thank you, Myka, but I'm quite all right. No psychologists necessary."

Myka smiles crookedly. "Right. Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me, right?"

"Actually, I don't." Helena smirks.

"Right! You don’t. Well, my room. It's just around the corner, on the left. And Pete is opposite me. Claudia is opposite you, and Leena is next door to her, and the other three rooms are empty at the moment--"

"Myka," Helena cuts her off with a rakish grin. "You're rambling."

And Myka feels the blush rise furiously, almost instantly, from her chest, up through her jaw, and she looks down. "I am, aren't I."

"Just a little."

"Right, well. You're—I mean, it's weird. You're here. H.G. Wells. Your books meant…" she shakes her head. She is staring at the floor, at the worn woven pattern of the carpet, so she forces her gaze up, to meet the bemused gaze of Helena Wells.

There will come a time, Myka thinks, when she will tell H.G. about what her books meant. She will tell her about the nights spent in bed, her father reading chapters of "The Time Machine" and "War of the Worlds" from the armchair. She will tell her about the rare freedom, the blissful oblivion, she felt in those moments, because if there was anything her father liked about her—if there was anything about her he found to be _good enough_ —it was the fact that she could sit still through twenty-five pages of “The Invisible Man,” silent and rapt.

But now isn’t the time for that story.

"I'll let you finish getting settled," Myka says instead, and slides backward out the door before Helena can react.

 


	8. Anticipations of the Reactions of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Coincidences are the universe’s way of resolving paradoxes, darling, that’s all," Helena shrugs. "The past could not have happened if today didn’t play out as it did. That’s all it is.”

**Warehouse 12 Retrieval Report**

**Date of collection** : 26 October 1889

 **Date of report** : 27 October 1889

 **Report submitted by** : Agent R. Caturanga

 **Artifact description summary** : Cluster of artifacts known, collectively, as Jack the Ripper.

 **Artifact description detail** :

            Artifact 1: Frederick Cotton's cravat. Made by Mary Ann Cotton, worn at the time of Frederick's death by arsenic poisoning at her hand. Imbues wearer with the desire to kill the person to whom he is attracted. Discovered by Tom Smith (deceased) in a donations bin at a Whitechapel poorhouse.

            Artifact 2: Tom Smith's pocketknife. Tom Smith, who discovered Cotton's cravat, proved to have previously existing sociopathic murderous tendencies so severe that combined so combustively with the effects of the cravat that a new artifact was produced. The knife acquired a taste for human blood, and when wielded to cut human flesh, is incapable of stopping without causing unspeakable carnage.

            Artifact 3: The lantern, carried by the night watchman near a warehouse in Whitechapel who stumbled upon Tom Smith in the midst of committing his murder. His horror at the sight was transmitted to his lantern, which became capable of suspending the animation of any person caught in its glow. The night watchman took advantage of the moment to pull Smith from his victim, likely killing him in the process. Unfortunately, in this process he appears to have come into contact with both the knife and the cravat, and thus Tom Smith's evils were passed along to him.

            Agents believe Tom Smith to have been responsible for the first three of the so-called Jack the Ripper murders, with the night watchman responsible for the final two.

            Once the artifacts were retrieved and neutralized, the night watchman was returned to his pre-affective self, with no apparent memory of the murders he had committed. Our analysis was that he was, indeed, a decent fellow caught in the bind of foul objects, and thus we released him upon his own reconnaissance.

 **Retrieving agent** : Jr. Agent H.G. Wells, primary. Agents V. Crowley and R. Caturanga, supporting.   

 **Artifact storage location** : Vermont-26.

//

After the chase is over, when the lantern, and the knife, and the cravat are all safely stowed, Vincent finds Helena in the Warehouse library. He carries in one hand an aged bottle of cognac, and in the other, two snifters.

“A drink, Wells? To celebrate a job well done?”

For an instant, when she looks up, he thinks he might be staring at a caged animal, frozen as though afraid to have been spotted—but then she smiles, a little shyly, and stands to step back from the table.

“Certainly,” she says. She closes the book and leaves it behind as she walks toward the leather sofa against the wall. He follows, but he glances down at the book cover as he walks past it: Emil du Bois-Reymond.

“Physiology?” he asks, as he sets the glasses down on the low table and begins to work at the stopper of the bottle.

“It’s for a textbook I’m writing with my brother,” she says, as she carefully tucks her skirts and sits down.

Vincent feels his eyebrows raise. “So you truly are _that_ H.G. Wells, then. The one who writes those stories.”

“They’re my stories, yes. My brother writes them down.”

Vincent offers her a glass. He is hovering, awkwardly, between the table and the chesterfield where she sits. It would be untoward, he thinks, for him to share the sofa with her, and he contemplates fetching one of the wooden chairs from the reading table until Helena says, “Vincent. Please, sit.”

So he does.

They chat about biology, and writing, and investigating for the Warehouse. They chat about parenthood, and Helena is as unusual in that respect as she is in all other respects: she shows no shame, no remorse for having had a child out of wedlock, and he finds himself unable to censure her as a result. He would judge this, normally. He knows he would. But he can’t, not of her.

Their second glass of brandy and they are sitting closer to one another. And then closer still. And he never fancied himself the kind of man to take a mistress, never fancied himself an admirer of younger women, but when they are kissing he feels more virile than he has felt in two decades.

Her body is warm and firm between his own and the cushions of the leather couch.

And when he goes home, that night, to his wife, he is ashamed of what he has done – but even more excited by his desire to do it again.

//

Charles knows not what to think of Helena these days.

He is quite certain she does not sleep. She stays awake through the night, scribbling out notes and outlines for their biology textbook which he then translates into prose throughout the following day. And during the day she's gone, off chasing her strange and varied escapades with Scotland Yard.

And then, one day, over tea, Sophie says, "Have you met her new beau?"

Charles looks up from his pot pie to knit his brow at her. "Her beau? Whose beau?"

"Helena's, of course," Sophie replies, and takes another bite of her supper.

It's all Charles can do to keep from throwing his fork down like a petulant infant because how the bloody hell could Sophie have known that Helena had a beau before he found out? And how the bloody blue blazes could Woolly not have said anything over pints?

But he swallows that frustration, the irritation, and says, "No. I have not met her new beau."

After two weeks of this, of the madness and the sleeplessness, she stumbles into the house and trips upstairs, directly. She doesn't even detour to see Christina, who's asleep in the kitchen.

Charles reaches for the infant, swaddled in her bassinet and left under his supervision while Sophie is at the market. He's never mastered this, the carrying of the baby, but he crooks her against his chest as best he can and makes his way carefully up the stairs.

He's nervous to release her with even one hand, so he does not knock on Helena's door. Instead, he tips his head close to the wood, and says her name as a soft question.

"Come in," she says quietly.

And now he's really in a bloody bind because his hands are full with his niece and he's terrified to let her go, even with just one hand, even for just the seconds it would take to turn the doorknob, but…

He bends down, awkwardly, and quickly twists the doorknob with one hand while keeping his forearm pressed against Christina. She is looking up at him through her preternaturally long lashes, but she stays quiet, trusting, through his fumbling.

Helena is sitting in her rocking chair. Just sitting, Her hair is coming loose from its knot –but that's not unusual, not for her. Except that it is, because there's a difference, somehow, between the way her hair frizzes when it's worked its way out due to her activity, and the way it droops when it has simply slipped the grip of its pins and ties. Today, it's drooping.

"I think you forgot someone," Charles says, lifting the bundle in his arms, and forces a laugh.

Helena's eyes twitch up to him from where they had lingered on the floor. They pause for a moment and then drop to Christina at his chest.

"Oh," she says, and holds out her arms, listlessly.

Charles exhales in relief as he carefully, so carefully, places Christina in Helena's arms. When Helena looks down at her, her lips quirk, the smallest hint of a smile.

"Well, my darling," she says, "let's see if I've got anything for you, hmm?"

Helena's hand travels to the topmost button of her blouse and Charles immediately spins on his heel and coughs, awkwardly.

"I'll… I suppose I'll leave you to it, then? Helena?"

She does not answer.

He sighs. "Right." And then there's the sound of the baby suckling. "I'll… I'll just be in my room, then, working on the book?"

Still no answer.

"Well, you know where I am if you need anything."

He does, indeed, go to his room. A short time later, he hears Sophie return, downstairs; eventually, she brings him a tray of supper.

"Is she all right?" he asks her, because Sophie, somehow, seems to have come to know Helena better in these past six months than Charles has in every year they've known one another, including the months in the womb.

Sophie glances back over her shoulder, toward the closed door of Helena's room. "I don't know," she says.

//

While Helena spent days and days as a rainbow, she is now somehow, bizarrely, colorless. She is grey. Sophie can make out young Christina's light, sky-blue tint, but what Helena emanates is an absence of colour, an absorption of light.

For five days, now, she has been like this. She has gone, every day, to the Warehouse, and comes home every evening. On the third day, Sophie sent a note to Caturanga, inquiring as to Helena's wellbeing in the workplace; his response arrived this morning, saying that she has been subdued, but completing her inventory duty as required. He has paired her with Wolcott, and they have been wandering the stacks in peace.

Tonight, Sophie is supposed to have the evening off; she had planned to visit Irene for supper. But she is nervous about Helena—for herself, but also for her ability to watch the baby when her aura is dull like this, like she is on the verge of slipping from existence.

So she knocks on Helena's door. She does not await an answer before she opens it to find Helena sitting, listlessly, in her rocking chair.

"I'll watch Christina this evening," she says, "I think you should venture out. Take a walk. Perhaps see if you can join Charles and Wolcott for their evening pint?"

(It's a scandalous suggestion, that Helena venture to a pub with two men, even if one of them is her brother. But so much about Helena is already scandalous, it seems redundant to worry about such things anymore."

"Very well," Helena says. She stands methodically, like it requires practice, and walks past Sophie out the room, down the stairs, and out the door.

In her bassinet, the baby starts to cry. Sophie crosses the room to her, lifts her, cradles her against her chest.

//

Carlotta is standing in her usual place in the evening dusk when the Helena agent reappears, alone this time.

"I've heard nothing new," Carlotta says, right away.

"Not to worry," Helena says, "the problem's been resolved."

It takes a moment for the news to settle on Carlotta’s shoulders. When it does, she feels her face open into a wide smile, and she says, "What? You got him, did you?"

Helena blinks at her, frozen, and stutters, "I—I—the details are… classified….” She looks down and away and Carlotta is frustrated; she'd hoped for more from this woman, this Helena, who had seemed like perhaps she was a little closer to the ground than most of the bobbies, but no, just as secretive as the rest.

"Well then, what can I do for you?" Carlotta asks. And then she'd thought she'd seen it all but now she could say so for sure when she sees Helena, a woman, a _police_ woman, pull a handful of coin from her purse and offer it in an outstretched hand. "For… for your time. This evening. If you're willing," Helena says. Her voice cracks a little and Carlotta knows she must never have done this before, asked for this kind of thing, this kind of transaction, before.

"Is this some kind of trick," Carlotta says, but she hears her voice go down at the end of a sentence, not up, because it’s not actually a question.

Helena just shakes her head _, no_ , and it's so solemn—no, so sad, so full of weight—that Carlotta can't help but believe her.

So Carlotta smiles, and closes her fingers around Helena's outstretched hand and the coin it contains, and leads her down the road to the pub where they travel up to the second floor. Outside of her dresses, her boots, with that police medallion tucked away in a coat pocket left on the floor, this Helena seems smaller. And younger, Carlotta notes. She'd thought them the same age but she sees now that Helena is five, maybe ten years younger. Carlotta has only rarely done this with a woman but Helena's eyes are like saucers, her mouth open in an O of surprise, her body quaking and trembling under Carlotta's hands.

Usually, after, Carlotta takes her money, dresses and leaves, either to find another client or to go home for the evening. But something about Helena's smallness, her wide eyes like a fawn, make Carlotta feel protective. So they lie together. Carlotta says: "You have a child, don’t you."

Helena nods against Carlotta's chest.

"How did you know about mine?" Carlotta asks. "When I met you, you knew, but I'd never said nothing about him."

"You had a child's dirty handprint on your skirt," Helena says quietly. "I shall have to remember to watch for that when my Christina is old enough to stand and clutch at my dresses."

Carlotta smiles. Then, wondering, she takes a deep breath and says: "And where is your gent this evening?"

A long pause draws out. Carlotta worries she may have offended Helena until Helena says: "My gent?"

And Carlotta's going to let that go, because Helena clearly doesn't want to discuss it, when Helena says, "He's with his wife."

Carlotta smiles and shakes her head sadly. "It's like that, is it? Wankers, all of them."

A huff of breath, a harsh laugh against her chest. "It's all right," Helena says. "I knew about her when I took up with him." She sighs, now. "I met her once, just a few days ago. She seemed a lovely woman. Straightforward, warm. Comely. A good mother to their sons."

"Hmm," Carlotta says. She feels Helena's breath hot and steady against her chest. "I always hated that men can be so good at making us feel bad about ourselves."

The steady puffs of air against her skin continue unchanged.

"He's got you and a wife," Carlotta continues, "but I'm guessing he wants you to have just him, and no-one else, don't he?"

Helena shifts, then, to roll onto her back. From this angle Carlotta can only see the top of her brow, but she imagines her staring up at the grey ceiling and its thick exposed beams.

"He'd prefer that, I'm sure," she says, and Carlotta thinks she hears a hint of laughter, a curl of mirth in her voice. "But I am not ruled by his preference," she says, and the mirth is gone again.

"So it seems," Carlotta murmurs. She makes her point by reaching down and cupping Helena's exposed breast. Helena shifts and moves, ever-so-slightly, into the touch, and then rolls up onto her side to face Carlotta again, propping her cheek against the heel of her hand.

"Do you ever feel… adrift, Carlotta?" she asks.

Carlotta blinks. " I don't follow," she says.

Helena leans into Carlotta now, presses her body along the length of Carlotta's side. She says, "I feel, sometimes, like I am nobody's preference. Like those who want me near want me only for my best parts. And many of those who are near to me are there of necessity. I feel as though I am, at best, desired but not needed, and more often, merely tolerated."

And Carlotta knows that this is the real reason, so much of the time, that people hire her: not for her body but for the company that comes with it. She is so terribly young, this Helena, and Carlotta opens her mouth but she knows not what to say. So she wraps her arm tighter, pulls Helena more fully against her.

"I want to belong somewhere," Helena murmurs. She breathes. Breathes again.

Carlotta finally slides a hand down Helena’s side, strokes her thumb into the hollow between hip and thigh, and says: "Right here, right now, you belong nowhere but with me, yes?"

And then Helena's lips are on Carlotta's neck, Helena's hand is stroking her hip. So Carlotta pushes Helena onto her back and brings her mouth to her skin, because she can't give her confidence in the world, but she can make her forget it, at least for a little while. That, after all, is the true skill of her profession.

Later, after they dress and before they part ways, Helena presses two full pounds extra into Carlotta's hand.

Carlotta never sees her again.

 

* * *

 

When Artie storms out of the Warehouse to chase Rebecca St. Clair’s artifact, the morning after Helena arrives, Pete, for once in his life, doesn’t rib Myka or say “I told you so” and for that, Myka is grateful.

And then the events of the day fall like dominoes. Every day spent working in the Warehouse, every job done working for the Warehouse, is weird, and more than a little frightening. But the days of true wonder—the kind of wonder that makes Myka feel small in a large world full of incredible possibility—are still few and far between. Swapping bodies with Pete was up there, and the whole thing with Man Ray’s camera was crazy not so much because of the artifact as because of the part where she walked the runway at a New York Fashion Week event.

But this. Walking around in 1961. Seeing, smelling, feeling the world as it was when her parents were young. This, she thinks, takes the cake, absolutely and completely. And the object that made it possible _isn’t even technically an artifact_.

The end of the day brings everything back to earth, though, when they find themselves surrounded with the stench of burning metal, hovering around Rebecca’s lifeless form, limp in one of the chairs of H.G.’s machine. They hover, the five of them, around her. Pete’s got his arms crossed over his chest, legs wide, eyes downcast, as though he can physically hold himself up against the discomfort. Helena combed her fingers through her hair a few minutes ago but stopped halfway through, her palms still resting against the back of her neck. Artie has flopped into the machine’s second chair; Claudia dropped down onto the curb of the platform beside him And Myka’s just standing there, feeling her heart rate increase, wondering how long it’ll take before this all finally snaps.

Helena’s the one who finally moves. She gently lifts the headpiece from Rebecca’s brow and stoops to set it on the floor beneath her chair, and then presses a hand over the woman’s eyes as if to close them, as though they aren’t already closed.

“So what do we do now?” Claudia asks.

Artie answers without moving, without picking his head up from where it slouches against the back his chair: “We bring her to the B&B, and then call an ambulance. And I call Dr. Calder to oversee things from there.”

“And then we arrange for a service for her,” Helena says, loudly. Her eyes are staring at Rebecca’s still face, fixed as though frozen there.

“H.G.—“ Artie begins, but Helena’s head snaps up and toward him and she repeats, “We will arrange a funeral for this woman. She has no family. She said so herself.” She turns back to Rebecca, then leans down to straighten her collar, the hem of her shirt. “The ones she loves are gone. We are those who remain.”

Helena’s conviction tugs at something on Myka’s diaphragm. She takes a half-step toward her, her hand reaching out slowly, but Pete gets to her first, his hand gripped squarely over Helena’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll work something out.”

He crouches down and gently, carefully, as though she could still feel him, he begins to work his arms beneath Rebecca’s knees and behind her shoulders. Helena, unasked, helps him, encouraging her head and neck to rest against Pete’s shoulder and helping to support her weight as he slowly rises again to his full height.

“Let’s go,” he says.

And then Myka, finally, snaps to attention herself. “My keys are in Artie’s office,” she says. “I’ll drive.”

It’s a ridiculous charade, the whole thing: they recline Rebecca on the sofa in the living room of the B&B and try to make it look natural, and when the paramedics show up, they explain that she fell asleep and just didn’t wake up.

(“I suppose it isn’t technically lying?” Helena says, shrugging. “The state of one’s body while in temporal transference is virtually identical to sleep, according to my metrics.”)

They all stand on the porch while the ambulance drives away. Leena is the first to push her hair back and turn to go back inside.

(“I think I handle death a little differently,” she’d explained to Myka, once. “I hope this doesn’t sound terrible, but like… imagine if, when a person died, their face disappeared. They just had blank skin instead. It would be hard to see that body as a person, right? So I know that body used to be Rebecca St. Clair, but… without an aura, she’s just not there anymore.”)

//

Later, much later, that night, Claudia hops back into her El Camino to drive back to the Warehouse. It’s late enough that when she opens the door from the umbilicus to Artie’s office, she’s met with the business end of a Tesla.

“Whoa! Whoa, Artimus, put that thing down before you hurt somebody, bucko.”

“Hurting somebody is exactly what I was planning to do, here, Claudia, when somebody walks into the Warehouse unexpectedly at…” He looks down at his wrist for his watch, realizes he’s not wearing it, then turns around to look at the clock on the wall. “11:25 PM!”

“Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t know I needed an invitation, jeez.” She pushes past him and his adorkable blue plaid pyjamas and drops into the computer chair.

“Please. Do come in,” Artie says dryly and she can practically hear him rolling his eyes. But he’s still Artie, and she’s still Claudia, so he flops onto the couch in the corner, dropping his Tesla on his desk on the way, and says, “What’s up, kiddo?”

Claudia spins around in her chair once, twice. Picks lint off her jeans. Tugs her sleeves down over her hands, and then pulls them back up again.

“Claudia,” Artie says.

Claudia slumps down a little, then swallows hard and pulls up her shoulders that way she’s seen Myka do. “H.G., she, well…” She sighs. “I know you’re mad at her but I think she did the right thing today.”

Artie is looking at her sideways now, through the corner of his eye without turning his head. “I don’t know if she did the right thing,” he says, eventually. “But I’ll give credit where it’s due and say: she made it right in the end.”

“I like her,” Claudia blurts.

Artie’s enormous eyebrows raise and fall like overexcited caterpillars. “Okay,” he says.

Claudia sighs. “I mean, it sort of feels like I’m cheating on you or something to say that because of what she did to MacPherson, and—“

“Claudia,” Artie interrupts. “You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re an adult.” He scowls. “Sort of.”

“Okay,” she says. She’s got her feet tucked up under her on her chair and she’s picking at the design on the side of her chucks. The star there used to be white, but she colored it pink with a highlighter awhile back and now the whole thing is peeling off under her fingernails in little cotton-candy chunks.

“Is that what you came storming into my office at midnight to tell me?” Artie grumbles. “Because that really could have waited until the morning.”

“Yeah. I mean no. I mean no, that’s not what I came here to say, but yeah, that could have waited until morning—“

“Your point, Claudia?”

“I think I know why she was bronzed.”

Artie sits up straighter and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I’m listening.”

“She tortured some people.”

Artie surges to his feet at that, one hand stretching toward his coat and the other toward his Tesla and he looks like a slinky stretched out of shape with his arms going opposite directions like that, Claudia thinks. “That’s it!” he yells. “I won’t have her in my Warehouse. I won’t.”

“Artie, stop,” Claudia shouts, except she doesn’t realize she was shouting until the words are out there, hanging in the air between them. But Artie does stop. He turns to her, slowly, and says, “Would you finish saying your piece, please. All at once. Just say it. And then I’ll decide what I’m going to do, and you’re not going to stop me.”

“She tortured the men who murdered her daughter,” Claudia says. “She said some things… today… so I dug into the old archived police reports and got lucky that this one was digitized. They didn’t know how to understand it back then, but based on the description it sounds like she used some kind of proto-cattle-prod. Crazy technology, for the time, but I guess she _did_ do a lot of work on the Tesla, so…”

“If your goal is to convince me not to bronze her again, you’re not doing a very good job,” Artie mutters.

Claudia leans forward and drops her feet flat on the worn wooden floor. “No,” she says. “Think about it. If somebody killed you, I would hunt their sorry ass down and I wouldhurt them. I would _hurt_ them until they begged me to stop and then I would keep hurting them because you do _not_ fuck with the most important person in my life, the first person to really make me feel like I’m worth something, and expect that I’m going to take it lying down.”

Artie blinks at her. The hand holding the Tesla, which was halfway to shoving the gun into his pocket, drops down to his side.

“She was a single mother in the nineteenth century, Artie. I mean, it sucks enough to be a single mother today. Can you even imagine the shit she probably took? But she kept the kid, she was raising her herself. That’s commitment. And then some jackass wants to rob her house but there’s an eight-year-old in the way so they cap her. They cap the kid.” Claudia sighs. “I’m not saying what she did was right. But I _am_ saying that maybe we can forgive her for it.” 

Artie turns to face Claudia fully now, hands full of his coat and his Tesla, drooping by his side. “Here’s the thing, Claudia,” he says. “I might agree with you about what she did. I might even go so far as to say that, yeah, if somebody ever did anything to you – ever _tried_ to do anything to you… well. I’d find an artifact that’s far, far more powerful than a cattle prod.” He rolls his neck and tips his head back, like he’s looking up at God or something for advice.

Well, at God, or at the Warehouse.

“But I’m not concerned about what she did back then. Not really,” he says. “I’m concerned about what she could do now. To you. To Pete.” He sighs. “To Myka.”

“She wouldn’t hurt Myka,” Claudia says.

Artie rolls his eyes over to her. “You don’t know that.”

“You didn’t see her, today, before you got back. When Myka was in the machine. I mean, she watched both of them really carefully, but, like, when she looked at Pete it was like she was a doctor and he was a patient, or something. When she looked at Myka, she was more like, I don’t know, like someone visiting a friend in the hospital. More worried.”

Artie scowls, and Claudia’s wondering if he’s like the kid whose parents say “your face is going to stick like that” except that his face _actually stuck like that._

“There’s one more thing,” Claudia says.

Artie just raises his eyebrows, _go on_.

“I think she did time.”

“I’ll say she did time. A hundred and ten years of it as a statue,” Artie says.

“No,” Claudia looks down, stares at the wooden floor like its pattern of cracks is binary code. “I think she did time like… like I did. In an institution.”

“Did you dig up a record of that, too?”

Claudia shakes her head. “I know this is very un-Claudia of me to say but – it’s just a feeling I have. When you’ve been stuck in a hospital, you learn to recognize other people who have been, too. It’s, like, something in the eyes… I don’t know. I can just tell.”

“Okay,” Artie says. “I don’t know what to do with that, really. But okay.”

“Do you remember what I did to you when I thought you’d done something to my brother?” Claudia asks.

Artie smiles. Actually _smiles_ , when he says, “Are you kidding? I had electrical burns on my wrists for two weeks.”

“Right,” Claudia says. “I tortured you. With electricity. Because I thought you’d done something to the only person I had in the world.”

Something in Artie’s face begins to droop a little, to go slack, as he realizes where Claudia is going with this.

“And I was in an institution, just like her. You could have punished me for what I did to you.  You could have had me locked away. But you didn’t. You gave me a chance. And I think—I’d like to think—you don’t regret that.”

“Oh, don’t be coy,” Artie barks. “Of course I don’t.”

“I’m just saying, maybe a chance is all she needs,” Claudia says.

(There are other things Claudia doesn’t say. Like: electricity was not the only thing H.G. used to torture those men. Like: there may have been fingers lost. And an eye. There may have been abdominal organ damage, and sliced Achilles’ tendons, and two men left to live so disfigured and incapacitated that both probably wished they’d just been killed.

Claudia doesn’t say those things because if things had gone differently, that day two years ago with Artie, she could see herself… she could have…

Claudia knows the depths of loneliness, and fear, and despair.)

Artie looks down and shakes his head, and then slowly, grudgingly, sets the Tesla back on the desk. He drops onto the sofa. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe.”

Claudia smiles. “I’ll take that for now.” She stands up stretches, and cracks her knuckles. “I guess I’ll head back to Leena’s,” she says. She looks over at him where he’s slouching and then, on impulse, dashes over to him and wraps her arms around his neck in an awkward, bent-over hug. Then she kisses the top of his head.

“See ya tomorrow, grumps,” she says, and before he can respond, she’s gone.

When she’s in the umbilicus, on her way out to the car, Claudia pauses and breathes. Then breathes again, deeper.

 _Huh_ , she thinks. _Artie must’ve gotten Leena to make him an apple pie all for himself._   “That’s just rude, dude,” she says aloud to the empty corridor. “Didn’t they teach you to share in kindergarten?”

//

Artie stares at the door for a long minute after it closes behind Claudia’s back. Thoughts of Claudia give way to thoughts of Scott, and the regret and the time he missed.

He stands slowly and reaches for his coat, because his robe is back in the bedroom, and really, all he wants to do right now is head over to his secret room and see if he can finally, finally make some headway on the Claire situation.

//

The door to Helena’s room is closed. Three times, Myka walks up to it and raises a hand to knock, and three times, she chickens out and goes back to her own room.

There’s light coming through the crack between the door and the floor, so Myka knows she’s still awake.

The fourth time, she takes a deep breath, holds it, and squeezes her eyes shut as she knocks.

“Come in,” Helena says. When Myka opens the door, Helena is sitting at her desk, still in her clothing from the day.

“Myka,” she says, grinning broadly and turning in her chair. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“No need to get up,” Myka says, gesturing dismissively. “I just wanted to come and… You know. See how you’re doing. After, um, today.”

Helena’s grin falters for a second, just a second, before she pulls it back into place and says “I’m doing well. It does feel good to be an agent again.”

“Good,” Myka says, “I’m glad,” even though there’s clearly more to it, even though it’s clearly more complicated than that. But that isn’t the reason Myka is here, in Helena’s room.

“Mind if I sit?” Myka asks.

“Of course not, darling. Please.”  She gestures toward the armchair near the window.

Myka settles down with a foot tucked under her. “What are you working on?”

Helena twists and glances down at the paperwork on her desk for a long moment. “The time machine,” she says, eventually, but her tone offers it as though it’s an afterthought. “I’d still like to know what was damaged in the power surge, and how.”

“I see,” Myka says, and then smacks herself inwardly because _stop being such a coward, Bering. Out with it_.

“I’ve got to ask you something,” she blurts.

Helena cocks her head to one side. “All right.”

“It just seems a little too convenient, that you join us here and the very next day, your first day on the job, we get a case that has to do with your time machine.”

Myka has been looking down, fixing her gaze on one of the brass handles of the drawers in Helena’s desk, but she looks up and meets Helena’s eyes now. “I mean, if Rebecca had shown up a day earlier, nobody would have made the time machine connection. It’s too big of a coincidence. I don’t like it.”

“Are you accusing me of something, Agent Bering?” H.G. asks, and for a moment her eyes flash with something that is the opposite of light.

“No, I’m not," Myka says, really, really hoping that she sounds convincing. "I’m just trying to make this make sense.”

“It was a coincidence,” Helena says, shrugging, but Myka shakes her head.

“I’m going to need something stronger than coincidence to feel good about this,” she says.

“Time travel is a paradox, Myka. This morning, before Rebecca arrived, your trip through time had both happened and not yet happened, simultaneously.”

Myka nods.

“Coincidences are the universe’s way of resolving paradoxes, darling, that’s all," Helena shrugs. "The past could not have happened if today didn’t play out as it did. That’s all it is.”

There’s a lull to Helena’s voice, a drooping, downward edge, but her words, somehow, are compelling.

“It’s like a weird, backward twist on relativity,” Myka muses.

Helena cocks her head. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Relativity?” And Myka smacks herself in the forehead, actually, physically hits herself, because of _course_ H.G. Wells doesn’t know the General Theory of Relativity. “Oh my god,” she says. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we are going into the Warehouse library and digging up Hawking’s Brief History of Time for you to read, because there have been such _crazy_ revolutions in physics since your time. Like—like—can I use your pen and a sheet of paper?”

Helena grins, broadly, the first true smile Myka has seen from her since she walked into Artie’s office yesterday. With a sweep of the arm Helena shoves her current project to the side, then places a clean sheet of paper and a pen off-center on her desk where Myka comes to crouch beside her.

“It’s sort of like this,” Myka says, as she begins to draw. “Imagine two identical twins, hypothetically—and I know this is impossible—born at exactly the same time. Now imagine one of them gets into a spaceship…”

It’s one o’clock in the morning when Myka finally stumbles back to her own room, thinking about how the Brief History really won’t cut it; she’s going to need to get Claudia to hack some university server somewhere to get access to Einstein and Hawking and Planck’s original publications.

(“Spaceships,” Helena had mused over Myka’s hasty diagrams. “Nothing good can come of those, surely.”

“But so much good _has_!” Myka had replied.

“It seems you’re full of stories for me, Myka,” Helena had said. “I do look forward to hearing them.”)

It’s 7:00 am the following morning—an hour later than usual—when Myka finally stumbles out of bed, and 7:15 by the time she makes it downstairs for breakfast, showered and dressed.

“You feeling okay, Mykes?” Pete asks over his Froot Loops.

Myka side-eyes him in response as she pours herself a larger-than-usual cup of coffee.

“You didn’t go running this morning,” he offers by way of explanation.

“I kept her up late. She was explaining modern physics.”

Myka’s gaze shoots up from where she’s dropping two slices of bread into the toaster, and really, H.G. has _no_ right to look _that_ put-together at this hour, after the late night they had. H.G grins back at her, wickedly, from the kitchen doorway.

“Uh—coffee?” Myka sputters out. Then she squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head— _get it together, Bering_ —and says, “No, sorry. You’d prefer tea, wouldn’t you. The kettle is—“

“Darling,” H.G. smiles, “Coffee would be wonderful.”

Myka nods. She pulls a mug from the cabinet above the coffeepot, fills it, and offers it to H.G. “Cream and sugar on the table if you want it,” she says.

“We’ve known each other over two years, Mykes, and I don’t think you’ve ever once poured me coffee,” Pete says, with his mouth full. “Although, come to think of it, I think the only time I’ve ever sat down to breakfast before you was that time last year when you got mutant zombie flu.”

“Well, you’ve also never kept me up half the night to talk quantum mechanics.”

“Quantum Mechanics,” Pete muses. “I think I read the one where he got his ass whupped by the Green Lantern.”

Myka has never realized that, before this moment, she never knew what a “quizzical” face looked like—not really. She thought she knew. But H.G.’s face—the cocked head, the raised eyebrow, the shoulders and neck tilted slightly back—Myka can almost visualize the appropriately comic-book-esque thought bubble hovering over her head, the letters "W.T.F.?" in bold italics.

“I’d tell you I’d explain,” Myka says, as drops the slices of toast onto two plates and hands one to H.G., “but honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the energy.”

“Don’t you listen to her,” Pete gestures with his spoon. “The Green Lantern is classic. _Classic_.”

“Well, Myka, if that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is,” Helena smirks. “’Classic.’ I do know a thing or two about classics. Or about the state of being classic.”

Myka laughs. “That you do,” she says.

Two hours later, Myka is doing inventory in the West African musical instruments section when Pete tracks her down.

“Aren’t you supposed to be over in the carpentry section?” she asks him, without looking up from her clipboard.

“Yeah, and I’ll go back in a second,” Pete says. “I just need to make something clear.”

Myka looks up at that, because Pete’s tone is far too serious to be Pete-like, and his face is almost too serious to be Pete-like as well. He reaches out and grasps her gently, but firmly, by both shoulders.

“You are not allowed to partner-dump me for H.G. Wells,” he says.

Myka blinks. "What?"

“I get that she’s, like, your childhood idol or whatever," Pete rushes on, "but you and me, we—”

“—are a team,” Myka finishes for him.

The words alone are enough to make Pete’s features soften, the shadow of worry to fade a little bit, the curl of his usual smile to come back.

Myka smiles and shakes her head a little, indulgently. “Lattimer, we’ve saved each other’s lives more often two years than most Service partners do in a lifetime. You know that. And you might be a pain in my ass sometimes and I know I’m a pain in yours, but I think that’s why we work.”

And now Pete's smiling, warmly, and Myka is surprised by the rush of affection she feels for him in this moment.

“There will be no partner-dumping,” she pronounces.

Pete is grinning now. He drops her shoulders and extends a curled hand toward her, little finger extended. “Pinky swear,” he says.

And Myka rolls her eyes, but she reaches out and hooks her finger into his. “Pinky swear,” she says, smiling.

//

Fourteen aisles over and six across, pale hands bypass the electronic log to retrieve Evelyn Wood’s spectacles from their shelf.

The same hands find their way to the computing aisle and lift, then slip into a jacket pocket, a 3 ½ inch floppy disk that had belonged to Jonathan James.

In the back of the library, they find a floppy disk reader that they affix to an old desktop computer at the back of the room.

Those same hands slip the speed-reading spectacles over a pair of eyes that cover a mind consumed with the concept of time travel, of paradoxes and coincidences, of the curvature of space and time, of the relative happiness and desire and success of a Black trangender teenage girl abandoned to the street and aging trader of illegal artifacts, of a single mother plying herself as trade to feed her child and a married man taking a lover behind the back of his wife.

That mind thinks of the relative lengths of eight and one hundred and forty-eight years of living—existing—on the planet Earth.

It thinks of curly hair and a lilting voice and the offerings of belonging made by open hands and open eyes and a crooked smile.

It thinks of how those eyes, that smile, turned down in response to reprimand.

It thinks of previously-laid plans, and how they require money.

The text from the disk loads onto the screen and a finger on an arrow key sets it scrolling, quickly, but through the spectacles the eyes see it all, process it all, and that mind—her mind—learns how to hack computers.


	9. New Worlds for Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh God, Myka, what are you thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next have been kicking my ass. I really got to where I couldn't tell if I was being coherent at all, and Hermitstull awesomely agreed to beta them for me. Huge shout-out to her.
> 
> For those of you waiting when the Bering and Wells would kick in in earnest: I think you'll like this chapter.

Lives grow in rhythms; layers upon layers of them like the smaller waves upon the larger waves upon the tides of the ocean.

Helena and Charles publish their biology text under the name H.G. Wells. It is well-received.

They continue to publish other things, too. Sophie hears them, sometimes sits with them, in the evenings when Helena spins tales; she watches as Charles frantically writes them down the following day.

A letter comes in the post seeking to negotiate a long-term publishing contract for H.G. Wells.

"You must invent a name to fit my initials," Helena says, over dinner, as if it is nothing. "Even if a publisher would consent to contract with a woman—which is unlikely—my lifestyle with the Warehouse is hardly conducive to maintaining the proper appearances."

"I can't answer, in person, to a name that's not my own!" Charles groans. "I'm not an actor."

"Then tell them it's a pen name," Helena dismisses.

And so that's what he does: informs the publisher that Herbert George is the pen name for Charles Wells, and they smile, and nod, and puff their cigars, and let him sign their contracts.

There are invitations that appear in the post for Herbert G. Wells to visit the city's Parisian-inspired salons, the dwindling scenes of its coffeehouses.

"We must respond to this in some capacity," Helena declares.

"We both know you will not be welcome there," Charles says,"but I have no desire to further cultivate the illusion that I am the sole author of the works of H.G. Wells."

"Then he will be a short-lived creation, I fear," Helena sighs. Christina is clinging to the index fingers of each of her hands as she puts one foot in front of the other, wobbling across the drawing-room carpet. "This would be an invaluable opportunity to grow the name."

Charles agrees to go to Soho only if Helena accompanies him

Charles is correct: when Helena first walks into a coffeehouse, a step behind him, the din of the room dulls to silent. Behind the counter, the host stills in his efforts to dry a china cup. The stillness is broken by a white-shirted waiter who strides purposefully across the floor toward them, and Charles knows they—or at least Helena—are about to face dismissal.

But just before the waiter can open his mouth, while Charles is wondering whether he should apologize to Helena or she to him when they are back out on the sidewalk, a thin but authoritative male voice calls out from a table near the back:

"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't be such filthy philistines. Have you never seen a woman before?" A bejeweled hand raises and fingers gesture, _come hither_. "A coffee for the gentleman, and for the lady, whatever she requests. On my tab, of course."

He waiter blinks, then flips his towel over his wrist and gestures toward the back of the room, eyes narrowed in scrutiny. Helena and Charles glance at one another before weaving through the tables to join the man and his companion near the rear.

"Good show," the man says. "I do enjoy a spectacle to cheer things up. Now, who the devil are the both of you?"

Helena cocks an eyebrow at Charles, and never before has he so wished to throttle her, because _her_ presence got them into this mess, and now she wants _him_ to talk their way out of it?

But the man has a jovial face, lips that look like they smile frequently, so Charles sighs, and attempts for honesty.

"H.G. Wells," Charles sputters. "Which is to say. Er. We are, together. H.G. Wells."

The man's eyes flit from one to the other of them and back, and then he leans over and elbows the younger man beside him, who startles and then gives a small, nervous smile.

"What did I tell you, Bosie?" he crows, "stories are never so full of secrets and surprises as are those who write them." He extends his hand across the table, first to Helena, then to Charles, and says, "Oscar Wilde, and I am chuffed to ribbons to meet the both of you."

("Wasn't he delightful?" Helena grins when they are in the hansom together, later that evening.

"Oh, he was something," Charles replies, with a shake of his head.)

 

//

 

They meet others, too. Michael Balfe. Arthur Sullivan. Thomas Hardy. George Bernard Shaw. Helena is enchanted by William Fox Talbot and Joseph Bazalgette. To Charles' great delight, they are invited to dinner by Arthur Conan Doyle.

But things don't progress as Charles would prefer, because in relatively short order all of these great minds learn who, between himself and Helena, is the true genius behind H.G. Wells.

Both of them are invited to parties, to events and festivities, but when they arrive Helena is immediately swept away to discuss this new scientific development or that new engineering feat, with Charles following her from conversation to conversation like a plaintive puppy.

So while Helena follows all their discussions of cogs and wheels and levers, of fantastical universes They have little to say to Charles, these scientific and literary and artistic masterminds.

So Charles begins to find his company among the women of these events. He befriends several of them, introducing himself—not untruthfully—as "the man behind the pen-name H.G. Wells."

Helena scoffs at him, teases him relentlessly for his string of paramours.

(She has her own string of paramours, of course, not limited to that git Crowley from her Scotland Yard work. Charles is, strangely, almost _jealous_ when he learns that Doyle is one of them. He does not speak to her for four days when, as he is strolling in the company of a lovely young woman at a garden party, he turns a corner and stumbles upon Helena and Gertrude, one of the young women whose company he has kept, as entangled as the branches of the hedges that half-conceal them.

"Don't be such a prude," she has the audacity to say to him, later that night, back at their home.)

The writing sells well. Between that and Helena's wages at the Warehouse, they are able to move into a larger house; they absorb the cost of all of Sophie's wages, and then increase them.

In the new house, their living arrangement is unorthodox. The servant's quarters have two rooms, so Helena insists upon living there: one room to sleep in, one to have as a workshop. Sophie takes the master bedroom, because it's large enough to house Christina on the days when Helena is away. And Charles, who needs relatively little space to sleep and work, takes the bedroom that remains.

(Over time, Helena refurbishes the servant's quarters in dark wooden bookcases that conceal locked caverns and hidden passageways.

"Why on earth do you need those?" Charles asks, befuddled.

"Why on earth wouldn't you?" Helena retorts.)

 

//

 

When Wolley was first partnered with Helena, it unnerved him, just a little. Not because he had concerns about being partnered with a woman – if Crowley could handle it, surely he could—but because she knew, and he knew she knew, that he had seen her at Bethlem, dull and grey and… and _with child_ in a miserable uniform.

He frets for days before they depart for Guernsey, fearing that she will be strange or reserved around him, or he around her. But the first thing she says to him as he boards the Hansom behind her is, “Do you play chess?”

He laughs: “I don’t think it’s possible to work at the Warehouse, below Caturanga, and _not_ play chess.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. Agent Crowley has said that he abhors the game.”

“Agent Crowley abhors most things.”

She laughs aloud now, the kind of deep chuckle that he rarely hears from women in public, and says, “That is certainly true.” She settles back in the bench and says, “I shall look forward to a game or two on the ferry.”

Over the coming days he learns that she will likely become a favourite partner, alongside McShane.

By the time they’re en route homeward, when she is laughing through a bruised lip and a sore wrist from a remarkable bout of hand-to-hand combat with a farmer determined to retain possession of an artefactual cowbell, he thinks he might enjoy her company even more than McShane’s.

“I didn’t expect her to be…” Wolley says, a few days later, at the Morlock’s Arms.

“To be what?” Charles prods.

“Well, _pleasant_ ,” he replies. “Most of your descriptions seem to center on her more difficult qualities, but she’s actually a jolly good time to chat with.”

“She chats with you, does she?” Charles huffs. “She barely ever speaks with me these days. Talks at me, certainly, but conversations? Never.”

Wolley can only shake his head as he swigs from his pint. Siblings, he supposes. Nothing to be done for them.

They stay later, that evening, than they have in some time. Tipsy, Charles leans over: "Do not succumb to her wiles, Wo-Wolley. Don't do it."

Wolley leans toward Charles and says, "You needn't fear that."

Later still, Charles tips over again, drunk: "Do not abandon my friendship for hers, Wolcott. You're my friend. _Mine_."

Wolley grins at that, then leans over and claps Charles hard on the back. "Don't worry, old friend."

 

//

 

Sophie keeps Christina when Helena travels for the Warehouse. Sometimes, she takes Christina and journeys to Southwark to visit Irene and her husband Thomas in the small apartment above the laundry they own.

Christina is seated in the corner of the living room, happily playing with two dolls that Irene had retrieved from a chest of her childrens' things, stored in the attic now that they, like Sophie's children, are grown and gone.

"You're not worried her mother will find out that you bring her here?" Irene asks.

Sophie tips her head to her teacup and blows over it. "They know I bring her here," she says.

Irene raises her eyebrows, both questioning and skeptical.

"You should come to dinner, when Helena's returned from her latest Warehouse trip," Sophie says. "You'd find them interesting."

Irene leans forward. "I want nothing more to do with the Warehouse, after what it did to our mother. You know that."

Sophie nods once. "This wouldn't be about the Warehouse. Charles doesn't know about the Warehouse. He thinks Helena works for Scotland Yard."

Now Irene laughs. "Is he a fool, to think the Yard would hire a young woman like her as an investigator?"

"He has great faith in his sister." Sophie cocks her head. "And compared to her, most of us are fools. She designed a device—a grappling gun, she called it—that's become standard issue for all Warehouse employees."

"I needn't have seen it to know that you could have designed something just as impressive, but they wouldn't have looked twice at it if you'd presented it to them, would they."

Sophie glances knowingly at her sister through the corner of her eyes. "I did make some engineering… recommendations," she says.

"I'm sure you did," Irene chuckles.

Helena returns to London from Guernsey two days later. She's ecstatic to see Christina, and kisses Sophie energetically on the cheek the moment she walks in the door. "How I missed all of you!" she exclaims.

Irene comes for dinner three days later, and Helena remains as giddy as she was the moment she walked in the door. She wraps her arms around Irene with unrestrained exuberance, exclaiming, “If you are Sophie’s family, then you are my family, too.”

Sophie had been worried that they might lack topics of conversation for the meal, but Helena keeps that from happening, too. She fills the gaps with energetic stories about the wondrous (and, Sophie notes with relief, non-Warehouse-related) sights of Guernsey, and Barcelona where she had been a few months previously, and Porto, where she has travelled in the past. She embarks on one long monologue about Sophie, and how wonderful and remarkable and endlessly important she is. Then she waxes lyrical about Charles’s friend Wolcott.

“What a lovely fellow, that Wolcott!” she sings to Charles. “You’ve done me such a disservice, keeping him all to yourself!”

Later that night, Sophie hears Charles and Helena bickering in the corridor outside her room, where she is resting with a novel.

“You leave Wolcott out of your games, Helena,” Charles whispers harshly.

“I don’t play games, dear brother,” Helena responds, far too loudly.

“He’s a friend. He’s _my_ friend and I will not have you threaten that with your bizarre and overstated habits of seduction!”

“Cha-aarles—“ Helena sing-songs, condescendingly.

“And keep your voice down, for heaven’s sake,” Charles interrupts. “Sophie is sleeping. So is Christina.”

Helena’s emmanence of fuschia leaks through the tiny gap between the door and the jamb, and it softens a little, pales to something more pink, at that.

“Will you share him as a friend, though?” she says, and suddenly there’s sadness there, that hadn’t been there a moment before.

Charles’ violent red settles to pink, as well, and Sophie can see their colours sliding into harmony again. “Yes, Helena. Yes. That’s fine.”

The following week, when Sophie visits Irene for lunch, Irene says, “You can see it, can’t you. With that girl.”

Sophie only nods.

“She’s not well,” Irene prompts. “I can see that even without the gift. _You_ must see it as though it were written on her in ink.”

Sophie exhales sharply and nods, again.

“She’s working for the Warehouse,” Irene says.  Her voice drops at the end, touched with nervousness and skepticism, as though Sophie had suggested a tone-deaf person join the choir at Westminster Cathedral.

“And doing well with it, I hear,” Sophie says.

“Is she receiving any care, Sophie? Perhaps the hospital should—“

“ _No_ ,” Sophie says, louder than she intended. Irene’s eyes widen and she sits up straighter. “You didn’t see her there. The colors…” She sighs and sets her teacup back down on the table. “It’s inhumane.”

“The Warehouse tends to make madmen of the best of it people. What of a girl who’s halfway there already, Sophie? What will it do to her?” Irene’s hands are folded neatly over her lap but she leans forward, assertively. "You're fond of her. I can tell you are. How can you live with the knowledge of what it could do to her?"

Anyone less familiar than Sophie would have buckled under the intimidation of that gaze. Sophie doesn’t, though, because Irene will always be her younger sister. She closes her eyes and then opens them directly into Irene’s gaze.

“I watch her,” she says, “and Charles watches her, and Rajinder watches her at the Warehouse, and McGivens does, too. She’s doing well.” She swallows. “She’ll be all right.”

 

//

 

By the time Helena has worked for the Warehouse for a year, her grappling gun has become standard issues for every agent, and she has re-engineered the light pistol such that she has been given permission to carry it instead of an actual firearm. It only fires once, but the charging time with Ben Franklin's key is halved from what it had been previously.

Caturanga offers her escape from endless hours of inventory by sitting her down for endless hours of chess. She is an open, willing pupil. Kipling, he notices, grows no more fond of her than he had been upon their first meeting. He does not send them on missions together more than he must.

"Have you any new stories on the horizon, my dear? Check," Caturanga asks, one day, after shifting his bishop to E7.

Helena huffs and moves her rook to protect her king. "There's always a story on the horizon, living with Charles," she says.  "And don't distract me."

"I'm merely conversing with you. Whether to be distracted by that is up to you." He moves his knight to D5. "Check."

Caturanga smiles to himself as Helena sits up straighter and stretches her neck to one side, then the other. "He wants us to write a novel. Says our publisher wants one to serialize."

She moves her king, this time, and Caturanga swallows an inward sigh, because this is where she's always caught: he puts her on the run and she loses foresight.

"Does a novel not appeal to you?" Caturanga asks. Bishop to D5.

"Not in the slightest. Do you remember how long it took us to write that silly biology text? I haven't the time, anymore, for such large projects, and what time I have, I'd much rather spend in my lab." She makes an assertive move, now: rook to D3. _Damn_ , Caturanga thinks.

"What are you working on now?" Queen to B3.

Helena pauses long enough to look up at him and grin wickedly. "A shrink ray," she says.

"Oh ho," Caturanga says, with a smile and a nod he fears may look too much like a parent applauding a small child's coal drawing. He clears his throat and tips his chin toward the board.

Helena looks down and stares. And stares longer. And then: "Bollocks."

"Play it out. You know the rules."

Helena sighs and shifts her king, and then reaches over and moves Caturanga's queen one square over before he can raise his hand to do it himself, and then she gamely topples her own king. "You win," she says. "As usual."

"You're improving," Caturanga says. "Now: tell me about this shrink ray."

Helena grins and spreads her hands out on the table before her. "Its beam analyzes the molecular makeup of the material it contacts and reduces the number of molecules in a precise ratio to what existed previously…"

Caturanga grins. She is lovely when she is like this. Lovely.

 

//

 

Christina Wells loves three people.

There is the man. He has dark hair and light skin and hair on his top lip. His fingers are black and blue and he tucks her under his arm to read stories. "Un-Chaaa," she learns to say, eventually.

There is a woman. She has dark and light hair and dark skin and she takes Christina places like the store and the park and when she says things the other ones listen. "Sof," Christina learns to say, eventually.

There is the other woman. She has light skin and dark hair and smells like the hard and shiny and greasy things in the room where Christina usually sleeps. "Ma-aaa," Christina learns to say, eventually.

 

* * *

 

 

Leena is in the kitchen, making breakfast, by 6:15, as she does every morning. Cheddar biscuits, today, so she knows to make a double-batch because Pete will eat even more than he usually does. She's listening to the early NPR broadcast out of Featherhead, up to her elbows in flour, when she hears footsteps.

At first she doesn't think much of it, because it's probably Myka, leaving for a run, or coming back from one. But, no, if she went running, this morning, she wouldn’t be back yet, so…

She turns around. It's H.G., hovering in the doorway.  Her hands are dirty, Leena notices, and she's wearing the same clothes she wore last night.

"Hey," Leena says. "You're up early."  She holds up her hands, dusted with flour and gooey with bread dough, and says, "Give me a sec and I'll get some coffee going."

"No, no, that's quite all right," Helena says. She steps further into the room. "Please, don't let me disturb you."

"You sure?"

Helena nods. She pulls back a seat from the table and sits down.

There is a general… beige-ness to H.G. this morning. She's muted, generally, and faint, and Leena wonders, as she turns back to her dough, if H.G. slept at all the previous night.

"You have the gift," H.G. says, out of nowhere.

Leena pauses, hands in midair. Then she glances back over her shoulder. "The gift?" she says, as nonchalant as possible.

H.G. nods.  "You see our colours, don't you."

Leena swallows and begins to roll out the dough onto the counter. "Colors?" she says.

"It's in the way you look at people," H.G. says, distantly. "You look upon them, and then you look _at_ them. Like you're looking at a painting, first for the image, then for the brush strokes. Auras, she used to call them."

Leena feels a frisson run up her spine. "You knew someone with the sight," she says. "Back then."

Leena hears nothing as she lays out a tray of biscuits and puts it in the oven. When she turns around, H.G. is staring at the tabletop a few inches ahead of her hands, where they pick at the weave of a placemat.

"You knew someone," Leena repeats.

H.G. jolts, as if from a dream, and turns to meet Helena's eyes. She nods. "Your family name is not Knight, by any chance, is it?"

Leena shakes her head. "Lewis," she says. "But Mrs. Frederic showed me a family tree, once. She had it all written out – the longest family tree I've ever seen. It went back centuries."

H.G. doesn't blink, doesn't move. "There was a Knight on it, four or five generations back?"

Leena nods. "Sophie."

The word spoken aloud jolts H.G. out of her stupor. Slow and determined, she rises to her feet and steps close, closer to Leena, just a little _too_ close, a little inside the bubble. Leena takes a half-step back.

"She was my four-greats grandmother," Leena says. "And Mrs. Frederic's—"

"—sister," H.G. finishes for her. "I knew that, but you... so many generations, the resemblance has faded, but it's in your jaw, I think. The angle of it." Her hands come up to hover in the air between them, and she wants to touch Leena's face, Leena can tell. "May I?" H.G. asks, and Leena nods. H.G.'s fingertips are cold but gentle against Leena's jawline, turning her face slightly one way and then the other.

"You smile more than she did." H.G. says. "I've seen it, but I could tell, just by looking at you. A smile from Sophie was such a rare thing."

On cue, Leena smiles. "Was she a very stern woman?"

"Sometimes," H.G. says. Her hands fall to her sides and she steps back and glances down, suddenly bashful. "She was… a wonderful person. One of the most wonderful I have ever known."

Leena tilts her head. There's a pinkishness to H.G.'s beige now, and she has to ask: "Were you… was she your…"

H.G. grins rakishly at her. "We weren't lovers, no, heavens. She had children older than me. But had our stars aligned differently… Well. I'm quite certain I would have made an attempt." She cocks an eyebrow at Leena and smirks.

Leena laughs, and H.G. laughs, too, and Leena laughs harder, and suddenly both of them are doubled over in fits in the middle of the kitchen, and Leena absent-mindedly wipes her eyes against the back of her forearm without thinking about the flour she's smudging all over her face, and she's really sure there was nothing all that funny that anyone said.

"She was a wonderful cook, just like you," Helena says, with a sigh, as the laughter subsides.

"I'd love to hear about her," Leena says.

"I could tell you so many stories," Helena replies, her tone dropping slightly, wistful. "But for now… perhaps I should sleep."

Leena smiles gently. "I think you should."

By the time Helena reaches the kitchen door, she's beige again.

 

//

 

Routines reform and adapt easily. When the artifact they're chasing is low-key and unthreatening, Myka goes with Pete, generally. When the task seems bigger, H.G. goes along, too. The first time they'd gone on a retrieval as a trio, Myka had been nervous that she would lose patience with having a roommate in the hotels. Helena, she knew, was a night-owl, and Myka was an early to bed, early to rise type of girl.

But it never becomes an issue. Helena will sit quietly at the desk in the room and write, sometimes on a laptop computer she bought online with Claudia's help, but more often in notebooks with a fountain pen she found in the art supply section of the Univille general store. Myka finds, to her own surprise, that if she wears an eye-mask to hide the light, the soft clicking of the keys—slow and methodical, because Helena is a two-fingered typist—or the rhythmic scratching sounds of the pen against the paper are almost soothing, lulling her to sleep.

 

//

 

The first time Pete and Myka go on a case and leave H.G. behind in South Dakota, Claudia zips off to the Warehouse before anyone can stop her.

"Artie!" she yells, before the door to the umbilicus has swung shut behind her. "I know you've got an inventory list for me, my man?"

"What?" he trips out of the bathroom, one hand wiggling a q-tip in his ear.

"Oh, God, Artie. Eww." Claudia holds up her hand between them and turns her head away.

"No, it's definitely time for me to be cleaning my ears, because I could have sworn I just heard you ask for an inventory list. Where's H.G.?"

Claudia sighs and drops onto the sofa. "Leena's."

"I thought you said you liked her. That we should give her a chance."

"Yes. And I meant it. Doesn't mean I’m not kinda scared of her."

"Well, let me put it this way: if she's not here, your inventory list is going to be twice as long."

Claudia sits up at that, gaping. "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"You're evil."

"Go get her," Artie shrugs. He looks down to inspect the dirty end of his q-tip, and then turns back toward the background

Claudia cringes. "That's really gross," she says to his back as she slouches her way onto her feet and starts walking back to the door.

"Got you moving, didn't it?" Artie hollers back.

In the car on the way back to the Warehouse, H.G. says, "Thank you for returning to fetch me."

Claudia swallows through the slight tension in her gut. "Yeah, no problem, sorry about that, I just, without Pete and Myka, we don't have, like, a routine or anything, and maybe we should think about getting you a car, or something?"

"I've considered it," H.G. says. "I've learned to pilot one, but Myka explained that one should have some kind of licensure to do so legally? And that this would require some form of additional legal identification, but I'm quite certain that my documents from 1866 would be looked upon with scorn at the BMV."

Claudia glances over at H.G. and laughs. "You did that on purpose. I know you did."

H.G., who's staring forward out the windshield and looking kind of suave with one foot resting up on the runner along the edge of the door, glances over at her. "Whatever do you mean, darling?"

"You're all, like, 'I know how to _pilot_ a car but I need _licensure_ and _additional legal documentation_ and _looked upon with scorn_ but then you toss in a reference to the BMV like it's nothing. Nice try, grandma, but you're more hip to the way we talk nowadays than you try to let on."

H.G. chuckles, and Claudia can see her running her hand through her hair ( _what_ is _up_ with that crazy perfect hair, anyway? Does the bronze do that? Could she even tangle it if she _wanted_ to?) . " _Touché_ , darling. Perhaps I'm merely trying to cultivate my old-school charm, as it were."

Claudia shakes her head "You are frakking ridiculous, you know that?"

H.G. shrugs.

Later still, in the stacks, Claudia is checking items in Zephyr-26 when H.G. wanders into her aisle.

"How goes the inventory?" she asks.

"Aren't you supposed to be over in the Great Depression section?" Claudia says, checking off the twelfth item on her list.

"It was, in a word, depressing," H.G. says. "I wondered whether you might wish to, eh, take a break, and come to help me inspect my time machine."

Claudia looks up at that, because seriously, of all the things to go check out... "Your time machine?"

H.G. nods and steps closer. "I'd like to see if I can fix it, and you've a far greater understanding of contemporary power sources and upgrades to systems of alternating electrical currents, so I thought perhaps—"

And Claudia's not a sucker for many things, but when somebody basically says, _You know shit that I don't know, so come help me fix the product of my own exceptional genius_ , well. Achilles heel. For sure.

Claudia grins. "These ice-age artifacts never move anyway. You're on!"

 

//

 

Artie knows they skipped out on their inventory duty.

He knew they would. That's part of the reason he assigned them both to aisles in the Zephyr quadrant: it's the part of the warehouse where most of the artifacts are by and large stable when not being physically handled.

He's in the living room at the B n' B when Claudia and H.G. return at dinnertime.

"I'm concerned about the use of metal wiring in the reconstruction of the resistor. The danger of exposing a magnetized alloy to such high voltage is—"

"That's the beauty of nichrome, H.G.! It's non-magnetic! Use that instead of copper with that same design you had before and, man, it will be—"

"Same design I had before?" H.G. laughs, incredulous. "No, darling, we will improve it!"

"Oh-em-gee, H.G." Claudia spins on her heel and holds up her fist. "Pound it."

H.G. furrows her eyebrows and cocks her head. "Pound… what, exactly?"

Claudia shakes her fist where it hovers mid-air between them. H.G., clearly puzzled raises her hand and brings her palm down on the back of Claudia's fist.

Claudia shakes her head. "That was terrible. Here. Make a fist and hold it up."

Artie sighs. Okay. This is good. This is a connection.

Claudia and H.G. have their fists pressed against one another, between them.

"For full effect, you gotta blow it up when you pull back," Claudia is saying, pulling her hand back toward herself and spreading her fingers out.

This is a connection to someone who isn't Myka. This is good. This is very good.

"Children," he says. "It's time to eat."

//

It's the day after Myka and Pete got back from a three-day snag in Mexico City. They spent their day taking care of their reporting, and then Pete took the SUV into town to see Kelly, so Myka's left to carpool back to Leena's with Claudia and Helena. She's already buckled into the passenger seat of the El Camino when Claudia climbs in through the driver's side door to the middle seat, and Helena slides behind the wheel.  

"Okay," Claudia says, "you ready to try this on the road?"

Helena fastens her seatbelt. "I was, as you would say, born ready, darling."

"Based on your performance in the Wal-Mart parking lot yesterday, my baby's transmission disagrees with you."

"I _fixed_ it afterwards," Helena says, indignant. "You know I did."

And none of this is making Myka feel any kind of good. "Okay, Helena, I know you can drive, but you don't have a license and this is a _stick_ , so—"

"Dude." Claudia pivots and narrows her eyes at Myka. "I'm, like, the _ultimate_ _sensei_ of stickshift-driving. And a license is a piece of plastic—you seriously think I couldn't take care of that?"

Myka rolls her eyes and sags against the car door. "Please, please tell me that Mrs. Frederic OK'd the whole forgery thing, at least?"

Claudia makes a big show of twisting in her seat, away from Myka and toward Helena. "Start the car, H.G. Foot on the clutch."

The car stalls only twice: once on the gravel as they make their way out to the road, and once again in Leena's driveway, and Myka mostly didn't even fear for her life on the road.  Mostly.

But then, when Helena turns the car off, she drops the keys in Claudia's lap and then holds up her fist and grins and says in her impeccable Victorian English accent, "Pound it."

And Claudia does. And then they actually _blow it up._ And H.G.'s movements are a little weird, a little square, like she's practiced them, and she's got this smirk on her face like she's so _proud_ of herself.

Myka's gut is twisting, it's tightening in the best possible way. She bites her lip, and then she laughs.

 

//

 

That's the beginning.

It gets worse.

(Or better, depending on your perspective. At first, Myka thinks it might be better. But later on, down the line: definitely worse.)

 

//

 

It's a minor disturbance in a fishing town in rural Maine; one boat bringing in record loads while everyone else comes home empty. Artie's metrics say it's something on the boat, which makes the search way more targeted than they usually are. They'll be out one day, back the next, he says. It should be easy.

But of course it falls on Kelly's birthday. Pete has made a reservation at a really nice restaurant in Featherhead, and he's scouted a cocktail bar that apparently has great live jazz, and he's booked them a night at the nicest hotel in town.

As Myka follows him up the stairs to go pack, she can see him fiddle with his phone, pulling Kelly's name up from the contacts but never quite hitting the "call" button.

Myka puts a hand on Pete's shoulder when they reach the landing. "Why not let Helena take this one with me?"

Pete's hand, with the phone, falls back to his side again, and he sags against the wall. "I thought about it," he said. "But I'm your partner."

"And she's your girlfriend, and you made all these amazing plans. You'll still be my partner when I get back."

Pete groans. "You sure?"

Myka drops her chin and raises her eyebrows affectionately. "What's the point of having an extra agent if we can't ask one another to fill in in situations like this?"

Pete shakes his head. "Artie will—"

"—be over the moon to hear that he can cancel one of the hotel rooms." She nudges his shoulder gently with hers. "Have your day off tomorrow, Pete. H.G. and I will have it covered."

He rolls his head toward hers from where it had been resting on the wall, and eyes her through his lashes. "No partner-dumping."

"None whatsoever. I'm pretty sure I pinky-swore on that, and I know better than to renege on a Pete Lattimer pinky-swear."

Pete chuckles, and then grins. "You're the best, Mykes."

She grins back, and nods. "Yup. And don't you forget it."

 

//

 

The artifact is a Passamaquoddy fishhook that the boat's captain keeps in his pocket. They identify, retrieve, and neutralize it within an hour of boarding the craft.

It would have taken a lot longer if it had been Pete with her, Myka thinks. Not because of any deficiency in Pete, of course. They probably would have left and bought a knockoff at a tourist shop, or something, then come back and somehow talked the captain into handing over the hook and then discreetly swapping the real one for the fake one.

But it turns out that among the many heretofore-unknown skills of Helena G. Wells is the craft of pickpocketing.

"I did fancy myself an amateur fingersmith in my day," she says as Myka tucks the bagged hook into her suitcase, back in their hotel room. "Nothing of value, of course. And I always put it back, though generally in a different pocket."

And Pete would be proud, because Myka can't help but snicker internally at the word "fingersmith."

"Well," Myka says, straightening, "I guess we've got ourselves some time. Do you want to go, I don't know, sightseeing or something?"

"Darling," Helena grins, "I would love nothing better."

It's a cool day, early fall, but sunny, so they wander the beach together for awhile, and then stumble across the historical society building and spend some time perusing displays of historic fishing equipment, from pre-contact Passamoquoddy and Maliseet tools to scaled-down models of present-day commercial boats like the one they'd been on today.

In the evening, they find themselves in a restaurant with an ocean view.

"I’m not going to tell you what to order," Myka says, "but this is lobster country, and it's lobster season, so, I mean, I'm telling you what I'm ordering."

They're both drinking wine. Myka chooses her glass from further down the page than she did a few years ago, back when she drank wine more often. She hasn't had a drop of alcohol in weeks; she rarely does, anymore, since Claudia's too young and she'd no more sit down with a drink beside Pete than she'd sit down with a drink alone.

(No, the only times she drinks these days are on random nights when Pete is out with Kelly and Claudia's tinkering in her room; Leena pulls down the Bulleit from the cupboard where it's stashed, and the two of them, Leena and Myka, sit at the kitchen table and sip whiskey neat and shoot the breeze about everything from local politics to movies to dating.)

So Myka drinks moderately expensive Sauvignon Blanc and Helena drinks moderately expensive Bordeaux and they both order steamed lobster, the kind that comes with a cracker and a mallet. They're snacking on their buttered rolls awaiting their entrées, when Myka says, "I always feel really weird about taking Native American artifacts back to the Warehouse."

Helena chews, swallows. "Why's that?"

"I always kind of feel like we should be returning them to the appropriate tribe or nation or whatever for safekeeping… like they shouldn't be ours to keep."

"But you've retrieved artifacts from throughout the world, Canada, Spain, China, and brought them all back to South Dakota." Helena shrugs. "In the history of the Warehouse, this is what its agents have done, for the safety of humanity."

"I know. I get it. It's a safety thing. But there are all these laws, now, about repatriating artifacts—little-a artifacts, not big-A Artifacts—to these communities because they were stolen by all kinds of people, soldiers, anthropologists, politicians, farmers, to end up in museums and archives, and so, I mean, I know we need to lock these things away. Look at this fish-hook: it was probably created when somebody was starving and needed to feed their family, and the hook was imbued with the ability to attract fish. It's a hook, it's supposed to catch fish one at a time, but when it falls into the hands of a commercial fisherman we start having to worry about the entire bay being fished out and about the ability of other fishing boats to catch enough to make a living.  But we're taking a slice of other people's history away when we bag this thing, you know?"

Helena is chewing slowly, contemplatively, with the corners of her lips turned ever-so-slightly upward in a smile. She chases the bread with a sip of her wine and says, "That, my dear Myka, is without a doubt the longest series of words you have ever spoken to me."

Myka, who is pushing her bread around on the small side plate, is suddenly as red as the lobster that will soon be delivered to their table.

"Sorry, I just—the wine, I don't drink much these days—" she takes another gulp to silence herself before she can say anything more.

"The wine, of course," Helena smiles, keeping her eyes trained on Myka's even as she takes another sip. "But your apology is unnecessary. I'm thoroughly intrigued by your ideas. In my day, the cultivation of these little-a artifacts, as you say, was thought to give insight into how civilized men had lived in earlier times."

"Right," Myka nods, "but, well, the politics of colonization changed an awful lot in the first half of the twentieth century. I had this one professor, back in college, who…"

They talk well into the evening about colonialism and artifact collecting and the politics of situating the Warehouse on the land of the world's dominant power. Myka is swept into the worlds that Helena describes, in an era where travel was slower and over-land and thus one could not escape encountering people not only in one's destination country, but in every country between the destination and home. Helena listens, wide-eyed and rapt, as Myka discusses Irish independence, the drawing and re-drawing of the borders of African countries by European powers, the European origins of the conflicts in Israel and Palestine, and the impoverished state of so many reservations in both the United States and Canada.

They both order second glasses of wine when the food arrives and they're still talking about then and now, about the things that the world still needs to fix, when they're cracking the shells of lobster claws and dipping the meat into melted butter. Helena giggles—a bona fide giggle—when the butter drips down her chin and she manages, just barely, to catch it in her palm, and Myka groans in frustration when some of her butter drips onto the cuff of her shirt.

If, by the bottom of their second glasses of wine, they are leaning toward one another over the table, Myka does not notice.

If, in this state of moderately-lessened inhibitions, Myka's eyes drift more often than is strictly necessary to Helena's fingers, which pull apart the food with the same dexterity that, Myka imagines, they would bring to one of her inventions, and well, there's _butter_ on them, and—

They've drifted away from politics and history, in their conversation, and of course now, right now, is the moment that Helena decides to tell the story of how her brother stumbled upon her fumbling with the skirts of another woman, hidden among the hedges at a garden party.

Myka rolls her eyes. "Why am I not surprised that you were ahead of your time," she says, laughing, but the laughter almost dies in her throat when Helena pulls the tip of her own index finger between her lips to clean it.

_Snap out of it, Bering. Come on._

They are still a little loopy, a little tipsy, when Helena latches on to Myka's arm as they walk back to their hotel, and Myka lets her, even being so bold as to pat Helena's hands into place against her sleeve.

But they sober as they walk.

"Is it true, what you said about the American Indians?" Helena asks.

"I mean, I think so, or I wouldn't have said it. Which part?"

"The part about the extent of their brutal massacre."

Myka nods. "I mean, there still a lot of Native people in this country, but by most estimates there are still fewer now than there were in the fifteenth century."

"That's…" Helena trails off.

She doesn't release Myka's arm, but they walk the rest of the way to the hotel in silence.

"I'm going to sit up for awhile," a far more sober Helena says as Myka slips out of her jacket. "Do you mind?"

"Of course not," Myka says. "I never do."

Myka changes into pyjamas and brushes her teeth and then slips into bed. The room light is off and Helena writes, frantically, by the light of the desk lamp, and it's only when Myka is comfortably settled under her blanket that she realizes that, in her post-wine fuzziness, she has left her sleep mask in her suitcase, which is on the luggage rack against the opposite wall.

She is far too warm and comfortable to move. So she lies still and replays the evening in her head.

She remembers the changes in Helena's eyes, the oscillation between fascination and rage, the eventual lightening into levity as they began discussing more lighthearted things, and then that fall back into darkness at the end of the evening.

She remembers her own feeling: the way her laughter felt lighter, more willing, than it had felt in a very, very long time. She remembers the slight tilt of Helena's head when she was listening to Myka's words; the way she would glance up and to the left as she crafted rejoinders in her mind.

The way those near-black eyes fixed unapologetically on her face, as though Myka were the most fascinating conversationalist ever, and surely anybody to glance at her could see it.

Myka lies in the darkness of her bed as she thinks, but her gaze is drawn, magnetically, to Helena's hands, as they were earlier over dinner. She watches the way they curl around the pen, the way they guide hair behind an ear, revealing her ever-present pearl alongside the anachronous extra piercings in her lobe and her cartilage. The scratching of the pen-nib lulls Myka into a near-hypnotic state, as though the sound were someone gently running their fingernails over her scalp, and her eyes are transfixed on Helena's hands, their long, square nailbeds stained with ink; she watches the subtle movements of the fingers against one another, against the paper and the pen, through Helena's hair or against the skin of her cheek or her throat or her neck, she watches them and feels them as though they were touching her, not upon her skin but somehow deeper, as though Helena were caressing the nerves inside her muscles, and the feeling is not sexual but somehow deeply, intensely erotic. Myka feels it, in her chest, a pressure at once soothing, arousing, and frightening, and she wants it never to stop, and she wants to reach out and map all the parts of those mesmerizing fingers with her own, she wants to feel the soft, pliable skin between each knuckle, she wants to know the unique whorls and spirals of those fingerprints, and—

Oh god, Myka, what are you thinking.

_Eyes and ears open, Slim._

Stop, Myka. Just stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there are long gaps between the updates in this story, but I do promise that this story will never be abandoned. I'm way too invested. The long gaps happen because I tend to write, like, 15,000 words and then break it up into smaller chunks for posting.
> 
> Genuine question, though: I have thought about shortening my chapters to about half their current length (4000ish words instead of 8000ish words) in the interest of updating more often. If you have opinions about this, let me know.


	10. First and Last Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps the Eye of Thoth and the Eye of Ra remember that they are both the eyes of Horus, two halves of the face of a single sky god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character death in this chapter, but it's canon character death so it shouldn't be too surprising to anyone who's watched the show.
> 
> I thought about holding off on publishing this chapter until I had more written on the next one, but - screw it. Also, I'm cautiously hoping to have more time to write next week so hopefully the gap between this chapter and the next will be shorter than the gap between when I published chapters 8 and 9.
> 
> Thanks, again, to Hermitstull for beta-ing this chapter when I wasn't sure if it was coherent or fair to the characters. Shameless plug: her stuff is amazing and you should read it if you haven't yet.

"Did you hear her?! Did you hear it?!" Helena comes bounding into Charles's room, Christina on her hip.

Charles rubs his eyes and looks over from the manuscript on his desk.

"I didn't," he says.

Helena grins and bounces Christina on her hip. "Say it again, darling. Say it."

Christina blinks at her.

"Say 'mama,' Christina. Say 'mama,' just like you did before."

Christina, her fingers wedged deeply into her mouth, buries her face into her mother's shoulder.

"She said it, Charles! I promise she did!"

Charles smiles. "Perhaps we needn't rush her into speaking, hmm? Once she finds her words, we'll have the rest of our lives to hear them."

"Oh, pish," Helena says. "She will have her uncle's way with words, won't you, my darling girl? You'll be a storyteller, won't you?"

"She'll have her mother's way with words, too," Charles grins. He winks at Helena. "So—shall we write a novel?"

Helena shifts Christina higher in her arms and rolls her eyes. "Perhaps when the shrink ray is finished," she says.

 

//

 

Christina is three and big enough for her own room, her mother says. That's why she's moving things out of her extra room and that's why they're buying another bed.

Christina likes the bed, she likes the chest for her dolls and her toys and her rocking-horse and she likes the green-and-yellow paper on the walls. She starts most nights in her bed.

But the house is big and creaky and Christina doesn't like noises, she doesn't, so every night for the first fortnight she slides out of bed and wanders to Mama's room, where Mama is usually awake and wearing glass things over her eyes and moving her pieces around, but for Christina she stops, she smiles, she tucks Christina into mama's bed and then Christina falls asleep to the tinkling and scraping of her mama working on her things.

She wakes again, just a little, when the mattress moves and Mama climbs in; she turns down the lamp on the table and then curls herself around Christina so Christina feels small and warm and safe, like a badger in a den.

 

//

 

“My goodness, they grow up so _fast_ ,” Helena says to Charles. “Everyone says it, of course, but now, to watch it happen…”

Christina is sitting on the floor of the drawing room, carefully lacing and tying her own shoes.

“Look, Mumma! Uncle Charles, look!” Christina leaps to her feet and lifts her skirt to show the lopsided but firm bows in her laces.

“How marvelous, darling!” Charles says. He bends over to scoop her up into his arms. He’s less frightened of it, now, than he was when she was an infant and felt so very, very fragile. Helena reaches over and cradles her daughter’s cheek. “Bravo, my darling,” she says.

Christina wriggles down, exclaiming that she must go upstairs to show Sophie, and Charles watches as she climbs the stairs, one hand on the supporting rails of the bannister, one careful foot after the other.

“Sometimes I forget what she looked like as a baby,” Helena says. “It saddens me.”

The droop in her shoulders and voice seems more pronounced than it should be for such a small statement, Charles thinks, in passing. But he is used to this, with Helena, this unpredictability of emotions and reactions.

He doesn’t expect it, though, when Helena straightens and swivels her head toward him, eyes gleaming with a faint mania. “I’ve an idea for our novel,” she says.

 

//

 

Christina learns to sleep alone when her mother leaves for ten days with Mr. Wolcott and Mr. Crowley. The first night she climbs the stairs and sneaks into Sophie’s room. Sophie is sitting at her table, writing something.

Sophie turns her head when the door opens and when her eyes settle on Christina, Christina feels herself blush.

“Well, come in,” Sophie says, and Christina does, clutching her doll under one arm and bunching the material of her night-dress in the other.

“What’s the matter, child?” Sophie asks. She leans forward and lifts Christina onto her lap. Christina curls against the fabric of Sophie’s blue dress, playing with the fine lace trim along the collar, and says nothing.

“Are you frightened, downstairs?” Sophie asks.

Christina nods.

“You needn’t be frightened,” Sophie says.

Christina shrugs. She knows that, she does, but the house creaks, and without Mumma here, Sophie and Uncle Charles are so far away from her room.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, little one,” Sophie says. “Whenever you’re frightened, you need only hold up your hand, like this—“ Sophie raises her hand, palm outward, fingers pointing up—“and say, ‘I’m not afraid!’” and then nothing that frightens you can approach. Did you know that?”

Christina shakes her head against Sophie’s chest and clutches her doll tighter.

“Try it with me,” Sophie says. “Put your hand out.”

Christina isn’t sure about this, she isn’t sure at all, but Sophie is never wrong about things, even less than Mumma. So she holds out her hand, just like Sophie had done.

“Good,” Sophie says. “Now say, ‘I’m not afraid!’”

“I’m not afraid,” Christina whispers.

“No, no,” Sophie says. She encourages Christina to sit up further, straighter. “Say it like you mean it.”

“I’m not afraid,” Christina says, louder this time.

Sophie smiles. “Good! Again.”

“I’m not afraid!” Christina says.

And like magic, just a little – she starts to believe it.

“I’m not afraid!” she says again, louder still. And then, shouts: “I AM NOT AFRAID!”

She’s smiling now, shouting it over and over, until Charles comes to the open door and inquires “What the dev—dickens is going on here?”

And Christina giggles at him, and Sophie says, “Perhaps it’s best not to shout, hmm?”

Christina smiles, an leans close to hug Sophie before she slides down and runs to her uncle and wraps her arms around his thighs, her doll trapped between the two of them.

“Goodnight, pumpkin,” he says, and he runs his hand over her head in the way she likes.

“G’night, Uncle Charles,” she says, and grins at him, and begins the long walk downstairs to her bed.

 

//

 

Helena writes “Select Conversations with an Uncle” in the space of a month’s time, while the Warehouse is quiet. She steps almost immediately into “The Time Machine.” She is so engrossed in the process, Caturanga tells Sophie, that she has asked him to be put on reserve duty from the Warehouse for a month so she can finish her third tome, “The Wonderful Visit.”

“I couldn’t very well tell her no,” he says, “though I do miss our chess games.”

They are walking together in the park. Christina hikes alongside them in the grass, a tall stick in hand; periodically, she lifts her hand to shade her eyes and squints off to the distance.

“I’m looking for Morlocks!” she explains, when Caturanga asks.

“Look, over there! Across the pond!” Sophie points.

Christina yells, “I see them!” and takes off running.

Caturanga laughs. “I never thought I’d see you play along with a child like that, Sophie.”

But Sophie isn’t smiling as her eyes follow Christina across the grass. “I worry about her, Rajinder.”

And Caturanga stops laughing. Sophie is a stern, serious woman—so unlike himself, in that regard—but there is a gravitas to her demeanor that surprises even him. “About Christina?” he asks. “Heavens, why? She seems a lovely girl.”

But Sophie shakes her head. “About Helena,” she says. 

Caturanga sighs. “She is… yes.”

“You haven’t seen her, these past months,” Sophie says. “There’s a kind of obsession, a kind of mania that haunts her with this writing. For years, Charles tried to persuade her to write a novel with him, and she refused. And now she writes three, in sequence, on her own. I hear her late at night at her workbench, putting pieces of things together to see if they’ll work as her story requires. A fortnight ago, upon the third day of her wearing the same dress, I went into her room and took her pen from her hand and insisted that she bathe and spend time with her daughter. You should have seen how she looked at me, Rajinder. I thought she might strike me.”

Caturanga is surprised by the bile that rises in his throat. “She wouldn’t—“

“I think she would, under the right circumstances. But she didn’t.”

Caturanga knows that she would. He has known Helena, now, for almost five years. What he would have said was _She wouldn’t dare_ , because she knows that, were she ever to harm Sophie, he would never forgive her for it.

He glances at Sophie in the corner of his eye. She is watching Christina, who, across the lawn, is wielding her stick like a sword, fighting off imaginary monsters.

“She needs to be drawn away,” Sophie says. “Can you send her on one of your missions? Whatever artefact comes up next?”

Caturanga smiles a little at that, eyes sparkling. “I’ve just the event for her,” he says.

Sophie smiles back. “You do, do you?”

Caturanga nods. “The upcoming World’s Fair in Chicago is bound to be a hive of artefacts masquerading as new technology,” he says. “And who better to separate the modern from the mad than our dearest artificer?“

“You’re full of good ideas, Rajinder.” Sophie smirks.

“I have them from time to time,” Caturanga smiles. He offers her his arm, and with a tip of her head and a self-conscious smile, she takes it.

 

//

 

"But Mummy, I don't want you to go!" Christina sobs, arms wound around Helena's ribs, face pressed into her blouse.

"Darling," Helena murmurs, crouching down to her. "It will only be for one month's time, and I shall bring you a wonderful gift from America."

"I don't want a gift from Erica," Christina sniffs, "I want you to stay _here_."

"You shall have such a wonderful time with Sophie and Uncle, darling, you won't even know that I'm gone."

"I will! I _will_ know!"

Helena looks up at Sophie with eyes tinged with desperation and Sophie can only shrug.

Helena winds her arms around Christina's thighs and lifts her to hold her in her arms. "You're far too grown for me to carry you like this," she huffs. "Come."

Sophie watches Helena carry Christina over to Agent Crowley, who is tucking his pocketbook into his coat after having sent their cases off with a valet. Crowley smiles indulgently at Christina, offering his hand to shake.

"I shall return your mother to you safely, Miss Wells," he says, smiling. "I promise it, most solemnly."

He is orange, when he looks at Christina: tender, indulgent. Fatherly, despite having met the girl only once or twice before, and Helena is mauve when she looks up at him. They do make a striking combination of colours and Sophie wonders, not for the first time, what might have become of them had Agent Crowley not been married when they met.

Half an hour later, when they boat's horn sounds and it slowly begins to chug away from the pier, Charles awkwardly holds a sobbing Christina in his arms while Sophie—who cannot, at her age, be expected to hold the weight of a five-year-old for any length of time—stands beside. Caturanga stands beside her.

"I don't understand what business Scotland Yard has interfering with affairs in America," Charles huffs.

"Confidential, my good man," Caturanga says, as he turns to walk to the cab stand, where they will take a hansom to the train. "Confidential."

 

//

 

The World's Fair is, on the whole, a delightful caper, Vincent thinks.

He and Helena enjoy themselves tremendously as they sneak and lie their way into backstage areas and discreetly test all kinds of devices, from small metal coils to long swaths of woven fabric, to see if they react with the neutralizer.

In their hotel, they pose as husband and wife, and they are free in their exchanges of nighttime intimacies—so free that he finds himself reluctant to leave the bed in the morning when she laughs at his diligence and tugs him back beneath the duvet—only to throw the duvet back and give him far more compelling reasons to stay there with her.

On their fifth night, Helena is taken, completely smitten, with a display of some electrical mechanism called "alternating current," developed by some Germanic export to the colonies named Tesla.

"We must test that device," Helena says, so they break into the showroom at midnight but find, to Helena's apparent shock, that nothing reacts with the neutralizer.

They should leave. There are security guards making rounds, and it won't do for them to be caught here, where their Scotland Yard badges will give them reprieve from legal action. But Helena is mystified, peering into the joints and crevices of the machine, hovering her fingers over its deactivated coils.

"Remarkable," she says.

"Helena—"

"Vincent, this is a feat of engineering that could change the face of new technology," she says, reverent.

"I'm sure, Helena, but the guards will be back any minute."

"I don't think you understand the magnitude of this genius," Helena says, circling the device again.

"And you can explain it all to me when we _return to the hotel_. _"_

In the end, he tears her away by agreeing to leave her to meet with this Tesla fellow the following day, once they have completed their investigations.

He does not anticipate that she will not return, the following night, from that investigation, though she sends him a message the following morning at breakfast to say that she's all right.

She does not come home the following night, either, nor does he see her in the intervening day.

The day after that she meets him in the hotel for breakfast, under the querying and slightly judgmental gaze of the Maitre D'.

"What a fascinating fellow, Crowley, you must meet him!"

"I'm sure I must," Vincent huffs.

He reminds himself of the things she's said to him before—perfectly reasonable things. That he has a wife, and she has no husband. That he cannot expect exclusive commitment from her when he is unable to return it.

At Helena's insistence, they dine with Mr. Tesla that night, and Vincent is infuriated to see that Tesla is a handsome man, unmarried, a decade closer in age to Helena than he, himself, is, and clearly more able to converse with Helena on the scientific matters she so adores.

"Do you understand what this technology could do for our light pistols?" Helena says, enthusiastically, and Vincent says "Indeed," even though he hasn't the foggiest.

Tesla invites them both back to his temporary workshop that evening, after dinner, and Vincent, feeling more than slightly territorial, agrees. He gazes on, dreadfully bored, as the other two pore over the inner workings of a light pistol, gibbering on in nonsense words about electricity.

He snaps to attention when Tesla snips one of the inner wires of the device. "What the devil!" he exclaims. "Helena! We've only one of those, and it must be saved for an emergency!"

"Oh, don't be such a philistine, Vincent," Helena scoffs, "We shall improve upon the model."

Tesla digs in a drawer beneath the table and emerges with a soldering iron, then digs back down and emerges with a mask, and then another. "I've another pair of goggles somewhere, I think," he says, diving back into the box.

"Never mind," Vincent says, waving his hands dismissively. "I want no more part of this. I shall see you at the hotel, Helena?"

But his last few words are lost beneath the growl of the soldering iron, and Helena has already disappeared beneath her mask.

He doesn't see her that night at the hotel, nor the following day, nor the following night. The day after that, he finds himself sprinting through a Chicago alley after a bandit clutching what is clearly a pair of artifactual opera glasses when, out of nowhere, there is a flash of light and the fugitive falls to the ground.

"Hello, Vincent," Helena says, tucking her pistol back into her pocket.

Vincent pinches the bridge of his nose. "We've no way to re-charge that light pistol now, Helena, without Franklin's key. You'd best hope we don't need it."

"Vincent," Helena laughs, "Will you never learn? I've _improved_ it." She pulls the device back out of her pocket and it looks similar to their pistol—but not the same. Its wiring is different, its metal components insulated differently. "I believe I shall call this version the Tesla, after the man who will recharge it for us in his workshop tonight."

Crowley is bending down to retrieve the opera glasses from the pocket of the unconscious man below them. Both cower from the sparks it emits as he neutralizes it. He squints at her as he slips the device into his own pocket. "You're jeopardizing our cover with every night you spend with him."

Helena laughs, haughtily. "Would you begrudge me this pleasure, Vincent? Would your _wife_ begrudge me the company of an _unmarried_ man?"

With no further words, she spins on her heel and walks away.

 

//

 

Crowley is near-infuriated when, two months later, he arrives at the Warehouse one morning to encounter Nicola Tesla chatting jovially with Caturanga and McGivens.

"Do we have a new Agent?" he asks, without greeting.

"No, no, not an agent," McGivens says boisterously, "A consultant, as it were. Mr. Tesla will be helping us to upgrade our pistols and will be installing one of his electrical recharge stations on the Warehouse floor. Now, where in heaven's name is--"

"Hello, gentlemen," Helena emerges from the door to the Warehouse stacks. "Nicola," she says, grinning, grasping his outstretched hand with both of hers.

Crowley can feel himself seething beneath the skin.

"You're off on a retrieval with Kipling today, Crowley," Caturanga says. "Agent Wells will be needed here, to work with Mr. Tesla."

Crowley snatches the file from Caturanga's outstretched hand and marches toward the door to the stacks. "Tell him to find me in the library," he says, without turning his head. 

 

//

 

When Christina is old enough, she has lessons every day with her Uncle Charles.

"I will not subject my daughter to the schoolhouse," Helena says. "And you've nothing to do most days, anyway."

Charles can't quite argue with that.

Still, he resents it, just a little, when Christina, aged seven, bolts to the door the moment her mother returns from work and hollers, "Uncle Charles wants me to solve a problem that can't be solved."

Helena looks up at him as she unwinds her scarf, eyebrow cocked. "He does, does he?

"He wants me to subtract seven from five," Christina scowls, with a theatrical stamp of the foot.

Helena smiles at Charles knowingly before crouching down to the girl's level. "I think if it couldn't be solved, he wouldn't have asked you to solve it, now would he?"

"But you can't take seven from five when five is smaller than seven, Mumma. You can't."

Helena is level, today. She is calm, and in moments like this, Charles feels a great swell of pride for the odd little family they have built. She looks up at him and smiles, and then looks back at Christina. She pokes her daughter affectionately on the nose. "Every problem can be solved, darling," she says. "If you think you can't solve it, you must think about it differently. Now," she stands, hand outstretched to her daughter, "Come. Let's go help Sophie with supper."

 

//

 

"What do you think of summering in Paris this year, Sophie?"

Sophie furrows her eyebrow back at Helena. "Paris?"

"Oscar has a summer house where he likes to go with Bosey," Helena explains. "But his play is opening in June, and Bosey's away in July, so he's suggested we take a vacation."

Sophie settles a lid over the stew she's preparing and turns away from the stove, wiping her hands on her apron. "Will you take leave from the Warehouse?" she asks.

"I may be called away on occasional missions, but Caturanga agreed to relieve me of my in-house duties for a month's time." She grins. "I believe he may have been influenced by the fact that you, too, would be benefitting from this vacation?'

Sophie does not dignify this with a response. Instead, she says: "I think that Paris sounds lovely."

 

//

 

They have been in Paris only a week when a telegram arrives from Caturanga:

RETRIEVAL IN MARSEILLES STOP WELLS NEEDED STOP CROWLEY EN ROUTE

"We could all go to Marseilles," Helena says despondently to Sophie and Charles. "I hear it's lovely. You could take Christina to the beach!"

And that, at first, is the plan they make, but that very night, Christina takes ill with a fever. In the morning, Helena perches at the side of her bed, pressing her palm to her daughter's flushed forehead.

"We shall stay," Charles says, from the doorway. "You must go. Sophie will care for her and I'll be in touch with you via telegram and we can all rendez-vous in Marseilles as soon as she's recovered."

"Mumma," Christina whimpers, curling herself against Helena's thigh, "Mumma, don't go."

"I must, darling," Helena says, even as she bends to press her lips to Christina's crown. "And you must get better, and I shall see you in just a few days' time."

 

//

 

When Helena carries her valise to the door, she is burgundy with guilt and concern.

"It's but a child's fever," Sophie says. "She'll be mended in no time."

Helena nods, warily, before stepping down to the curb where her hansom awaits.

 

//

 

It's strange to be sick in a foreign place, Christina thinks. Sometimes she thinks she hears things, or sees things, that aren't there, just because her eyes are hot and dry and tired and this is not her bedroom from home.

But some things aren't strange. Sophie makes soup for her and tells her stories, like she always does when Christina is sick. And Uncle Charles comes in and makes her doll and her bear talk to one another in funny voices so that Christina always laughs.

Uncle Charles kisses her on the forehead and says, "I'm going to speak to the bookseller down the road. Would you like a new story to read, Poppet?"

"Yes!" Christina exclaims, because she _always_ wants a new story, _always_.

After he leaves, Christina falls asleep again, curled around the doll her mother brought her from America last year.

She wakes up because there are strange noises. Strange, loud voices, men's voices, that are not Uncle Charles, coming from downstairs, and at first she thinks it's the same kind of strange noise she hears, sometimes, when she's ill.

But then there is the sound of feet on the stairs, of _lots_  of feet on the stairs, and a voice, Sophie's voice, yells "Christina! Christina, darling!" and it's strange, it's so very very queer, because only Mumma calls her darling, and sometimes Uncle Charles, but never Sophie. So Christina stumbles out of bed and to the door of her bedroom, doll clutched tight to her chest, and she opens the door and sees Sophie and a man just there in the hall at the top of the stairs, and Sophie is fighting the man, she is _fighting_ him and Christina is sad and amazed because Sophie never said, she never ever said she knew how to fight, but she is striking that man over and over with her hands and her feet and the man is ducking down, he's got his arms up like Sophie is really going to hurt him.

But then there's another man and he's got something in his hand—it's a poker, from the fireplace downstairs, and he lifts it and he swings it down and it hits Sophie in the back of the head all at once and Sophie stops fighting, she stops moving at all, she crumples to the floor like she might be dead.

And that's all Christina can handle. She can't stop herself. She is eight years old and Mumma is gone and Uncle Charles is away and Sophie isn't moving on the floor and Christina screams, she screams and sobs and that's when one of the men turns to her, turns with his big hands and his red, sweaty face and says, "Be quiet."

He's got a strange accent, because they're here in France and that only scares Christina more and she cries louder, harder.

"I said be quiet!" the man yells again, and they are walking toward her, the big man and the smaller one, behind, with the poker, and Sophie isn't moving.

Christina puts up her hand, like Sophie showed her, and says, as loud as she can, just like Sophie taught her when she was little: "I'm not afraid!"

"Stop shouting!" yells the man with the poker, pushing past the bigger one.

"I'm not afraid!" Christina says again, louder, her hand up, even though she is, she is so very, very afraid.

The man with the poker lifts it up above his head. "I said _stop shouting!"_ he shouts.

"I'm not afraid!" Christina yells, as loud as she can, her voice breaking with the sobs she tries to push down.

The poker comes down.

 

//

 

It took four days for Helena and Vincent to find and retrieve Napoleon's stirrup. Tomorrow morning, they will board their train to Paris, where Helena will rejoin her family and Crowley will continue his trip home to London. Tonight, they take advantage of this rare time together, devoid of other responsibilities.

When, in the darkest hours of the night, there is a knock on their hotel room door, Vincent, highly occupied in other ways—the most pleasant of occupations, indeed—is disinclined to respond. He ignores it and leans down to kiss Helena again.

But the knock on the door comes again, louder.

“For heaven’s sake, not _now_ ,” Vincent bellows, because Helena is grinning up at him, trailing her fingertips down his chest, down his stomach—

The knock comes louder still. “Mr. Crowley,” says a voice on the other side.

“Ignore it,” Helena murmurs against the side of Vincent’s neck, her leg coming up to hook over his hip.

But the infernal, incessant knocking is getting louder, and “Mr. Crowley!” the voice repeats, and with a groan of impatience and frustration Vincent heaves himself away from Helena, up to his feet, and reaches for his dressing gown.

“I’m coming!” he throws at the door as he tugs at his belt.

Helena has propped herself up on her side, blankets pulled just high enough for decency, and she pushes her hair behind her shoulder as she looks at him with sparkling eyes. “Do hurry up, Vincent,” she says, in that delightfully throaty voice of hers, “I can barely stand to wait.”

Vincent turns to her with the best glare he can muster before wheeling on his heel and marching to the door.

“What in heaven’s name is the problem?” he growls, even before the door is fully open, before he can see the nervous, trembling uniformed boy standing with a telegram on a brass plate.

“ _Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur, mais vous avez recu un message urgent,’”_ the boy says.

Vincent has a hard time imagining what message could possibly be more urgent than the woman lying in the bed not fifteen feet behind him, but he nods curtly fumbles in his dressing gown pocket for a few _sous_ to place on the boy’s tray as he picks up the card.

“ _Merci_ ,” he says.

“Leave it,” Helena says, rolling toward him just so, so the duvet slides down her back. “It can wait.”

He doesn’t intend to look at it. He intends to thrust the note aside and ignore it until morning, but some sense of propriety, of professional responsibility, overtakes him—because what if there’s an artifact, somewhere, hurting innocents?

He looks down at the words, and suddenly his feet are lead, his gut loaded with rocks, the floor falling out from under him. He freezes in the middle of the room.

“Come back, Vincent,” Helena laughs.

But she can’t laugh. She mustn’t laugh. It’s not funny. Nothing is funny.

Vincent swallows. He swallows again. 

“Helena,” he says. He takes one soft, quiet step toward her. “Helena, my love.”

The smile on her face drops instantly, and he knows what he’s done. “Love” is not a word he has used for her, with her, not ever.

“Vincent,” she says, sitting up, the sheet held over her breasts as though she knows, she knows, that this is not what they should be doing right now. "Vincent. What's happened."

He walks to her. Sits beside her on the bed, close, but not so close that they touch, the telegram between his fingers, face-down on his knee.

"Helena—"

"You're frightening me, Vincent, what's wrong?"

She reaches for the telegram. He does not offer it, but nor does he resist her attempts to pull it from beneath his hand. He shifts closer to her, though, puts his arm around her waist, then shifts himself up and crooks his knee and tucks it behind her, braces her body as she reads the words that he will never un-see, addressed to him, not her, that shout in a mockery of capital letters and punctuation-less phrases:

BURGLARS AT HOUSE STOP SOPHIE IN HOSPITAL STOP CHRISTINA KILLED STOP PLEASE TELL HG COME AT ONCE

He holds her while she breathes, and breathes, and shakes. He holds her when she leans forward and vomits on the floor.

 

* * *

 

 

Things between Myka and Helena change after the trip to Maine.

They spend more time together, Myka and Helena.

They don't seek each other out. Not exactly. Myka never knocks on Helena's door, nor Helena on Myka's. But Myka will linger longer than is strictly necessary in the library, flipping through a book, until Helena wanders through and asks about it. And Myka begins to find that she more often runs into Helena in the hallway of the B & B, and that when it happens Helena is usually on her way to the kitchen to make tea and invites Myka to join her.

They talk about literature. They talk about science. Myka is especially fond of the days when Helena wants to reminisce; she tells stories of comparing tastes in men with Oscar Wilde, of bickering over editorial decisions with Charles, of learning chess and strategy from Caturanga, of learning parenting from Sophie.

She tells stories of taking Christina to the zoo, of making paper kites and flying them in Regent's Park, of playing with dolls and learning that Christina had developed some rather unorthodox understandings of what a family should look like.

Helena's tone drops, then. "I wasn't a good parent, Myka. I wasn't… I wasn't there."

That sentence, that idea, tweaks a nerve in Myka, who barks out, "Did you love her?"

They are sitting on the sofa, side-by-side, in the living room, and Helena is leaning forward with her elbows on her knees but she turns, now, to look at Myka, wide-eyed and more than a little defensive. "More than anything in the world. More than the world in its entirety."

Myka leans forward. "And did you tell her that?"

Helena blinks, her eybrows furrow, and she nods. "Whenever I could find an excuse to utter the words."

"And she knew it? She believed you."

Helena nods dumbly.

Myka shakes her head. "Then you weren't a bad parent."

"But Myka—"

And Myka is angry, almost inexplicably angry at what Helena's saying, what she's implying, because Myka knows a thing or two about really lousy parenting, and, god—

"Parents work, Helena," she growls. "Mothers work. Fathers work. Sometimes they can't be home as much as they'd like, but if your daughter knew you loved her, if she knew you would always love her, then you did something right. Very, very right."

And Helena is blinking widely back at her, now, fingers tight around her teacup, and she says, "This is about more than just my daughter."

Myka deflates like a pricked balloon and sags back against the sofa. "It's about you," she says quietly.

Helena leans forward and rests her fingertips lightly against Myka's knee. "And more than that, I suspect," she says.

The entire story comes pouring free: of a father who never laid a hand on her, in affection or in wrath, but would punish her for mistakes in alphabetizing books by dumping his rolodex onto the floor and telling Myka she couldn't eat dinner until the cards were back in perfect order. Who would insult her if he could hear the slightest sound of her footsteps climbing the stairs. Who mocked her for needing to keep her closet light on the night after she saw _Arachnophobia_ for the first and only time at a friend's house. Who refused to let anybody help her—not her mother, not Tracy—when she was ten and sick with a bad flu and threw up in her bed in the middle of the night, because _she's got to learn to make it to the toilet._ And she's not sure why she's saying this, she's not sure why it's pouring out of her like lava, this story she's never even told Pete. She watches Helena's eyes grow closer and closer to black, watches her knuckles whiten against her knees.

Helena's mouth works soundlessly for a moment. Her eyes draw to Myka's as though a line connects them, an electrical wire sending pulses from one to the other. She says, "When my daughter was frightened of the nighttime creaking in our old house, she would crawl into bed with me. I never turned her away. Not once."

Myka swallows. "You were not a bad parent."

Helena tears her gaze away and draws it down to the pattern of the denim stretched over Myka's knees. Her mouth opens to speak but—

The front door crashes open and Pete comes in, stomping his feet on the mat in the entryway. "Man, oh man," he says, louder than is strictly necessary, "it is _pouring_ out there, seriously, the driveway to the Warehouse is totally going to wash out tonight and we won't be able to get to work tomorrow."

Myka jolts, as if pulled from a dream, and calls back, "Wishful thinking, Lattimer."

But that night, Helena comes to Myka's door, and she knocks. And Myka lets her in.

"I fell in love with a girl," Helena blurts. "I fell in love with a girl and my father had me locked away for it."

It takes a moment for Helena's words to settle, to find their proper places in Myka's mind. But then Myka points to the armchair and the window seat and says, "Want to sit?"

Helena does.

Myka learns all about the Bethlem hospital, that night. About a woman named Christina Taylor and a doctor named Austin and about Charles Wells, whose name Helena caresses with her voice in a manner entirely different from the scornful way she spat it that time in London ("I was unfair to him," she says quietly. "He was wonderful and I was not.")

Later, when they are both exhausted, Myka stands first from where she's been perched in the window seat and she offers Helena a hand out of the armchair.

Those hands are still loosely connected when they have crossed the room and are standing near Myka's bedroom door.

"Myka," Helena breathes, her fingers squeezing just a little.

Her name breaks the spell. Myka drops Helena's fingers and steps back, coughing a little.

"Goodnight, H.G.," Myka says, with a slight, awkward bow, as she reaches for the doorknob.

Helena's eyes are dark and deep and open. Myka can see this even as she refuses to make eye contact.

"Goodnight," Helena says.

In bed, Myka will chastise herself for letting this happen (You _held_ her _hand_ , Bering?!) and for making it stop (You _let_ it _go_ , Bering?!) and she's worried she's made their friendship awkward but more than that she's worried that she may never hold that hand again. 

But in the morning Helena is smiling and happy and hands Myka her coffee in the kitchen as though nothing happened.

They are assigned, along with Pete and Claudia, to filing duty, and Pete starts talking about moving in with Kelly.

"Many of my lovers were men," H.G. says, and the looks on both Pete's and Claudia's faces are priceless.

Sam used to tease Myka for being "hardwired to love being the only person in the room to know something before anybody else finds out." His teasing embarrassed her at the time but she has to admit, can't avoid admitting, that it's true—especially in moments like this.

"Way to make a scene, Helena," she teases, later.

But then Mrs. Frederic collapses, and starts speaking dead languages, and Myka, Pete, and Helena find themselves on a flight to Cairo.

They get three seats across on the leg from Rapid City to JFK and they spend it going over what they know about the case, about Warehouse 2, about their cover.

On the next leg, JFK-Cairo, they're on a bigger plane with two aisles and they're assigned two seats in one row, along the window, and one seat behind. Pete plops into the solo seat and promptly dozes off, sprawled across the empty seat beside him, because even he is smart enough to know that he's going to need to sleep before tackling the vast—and, if she's honest, terrifying—unknown that is Warehouse 2.

Myka is still breathing evenly, in and out. She swallows without choking, sits without fidgeting, but she's terrified.

Helena's hands fist the knees of her pants when the plane hits turbulence, her shoulders tightening like the string of a kite caught in a strong wind, and in some corner of Myka's mind it seems strangely backward, because, really, what's the point of being nervous about air turbulence when you're about to quite literally walk into the unknown?

While she's thinking about this, she's clearly not thinking about her actions, because when she glances down again she has reached over and tucked the tips of her fingers between Helena's curled thumb and her palm.

Helena looks at their touching hands, then up at Myka, and Myka swallows without choking, she breathes evenly, and she smiles.

Helena's fist loosens, and Myka's hand slips inside.

That's all Myka remembers before she falls asleep.

She's awoken by a gentle squeeze around those fingers, clammy now.

"Look, Myka," Helena says, gazing out the window.

Myka ducks her head and leans forward, leans into Helena's space and toward the plastic window and can't stop the gasp that emerges because it's the pyramids, the three pyramids of Giza but the sun is rising and cuts a diagonal slash of light across their surface, the pinkish-orange almost unearthly in its glow.

"Incredible," she breathes, and Myka nods. Helena's fingers are still wrapped around Myka's. Myka doesn't remove them.

 

//

 

Pete is frickin' exhausted.

He shut his eyes on the plane and tried to sleep, tried so hard to sleep. Really, like, Myka would have been proud if she could’ve seen that he never turned the in-seat entertainment unit on, not even once. He put his chair back and closed his eyes and tried so, so hard to sleep, but the best he managed to do was doze, sliding in and out for hours and hours and only really waking up when there was food or he needed to pee. But the vibes on the plane pulled him in so many different directions that he was convinced at least, like, four different times that the dropping feeling in his gut was the plane about to go down, and, really, who could sleep through that?

They are in a taxi, now, on the way to the hotel where they're going to drop their stuff before they head to the meeting site. He's in the front seat and the girls are in the back together and it doesn't exactly make him feel like a gentleman to keep putting them in the back of cars like this but somehow it makes things feel calmer, the nausea of vibes settles down.

He tilts his head a little to the right and he can see H.G. in the seat behind him, staring far out the window, and feels something pull in his diaphragm, like pulling back the band on a slingshot.

He turns his head the other way and sees Myka in the rearview mirror—not all of her, just half of her in the edge—and he can see her left eye (or, uh, her right, or whatever, because, you know, mirrors) angled toward H.G. for a fraction of a second before she notices him looking at her and meets his gaze in the reflection. She raises her eyebrows and inhales deeply and shrugs, like, _whatcha gonna do_ , but also like, _here we go_ , and the whole thing is very, very un-Myka-like. She settles back against her chair and turns to look out her own window, but Pete can read it in everything in her posture, her tension, that all she really wants to do is to turn her body to look back at H.G.

He drops his eyes back to the road in front of them. He should be surprised. He really should. It’s not like Myka ever said anything about being into girls. She never said anything about into anyone other than Sam. And he’s all for it, in general. If she ever said anything to him about it, he’d crack a joke about how hot they’d be together, because that’s what he does. But underneath that, underneath all of that, he’d be really, really glad to see her open herself up to someone, to the possibility of something, again.

He just wishes—he really, really wishes—that H.G. didn’t give him the heebie-jeebies every  time she was within a thirty-foot radius of him and not within a ten-foot radius of Myka.

Which is why he tries to make sure she’s within a ten-foot radius of Myka whenever possible, right now, because he doesn’t need that kind of crap as he prepares to step into what sounds like basically an alternate dimension.

And now he thinks about Kelly. And how she’s the first person he’s opened himself up to since the divorce, since the sobriety, for anything beyond one-nighters or the occasional multi-night fling.

It took a long time to get to where he could trust himself not to fuck something up, and he knows Myka isn’t there yet.

He glances back at the rearview and there’s Myka’s eye, angled toward H.G. again.

She doesn’t trust herself yet.

He looks back to the sideview mirror to see H.G. still staring out her window.

 _Don’t fuck this up_ , he thinks at her. _Don’t you dare fuck this up for her._

 

//

 

They’re given side-by-side rooms on the third floor of a mid-range Cairo hotel.

Myka uses the key-card to open the lock and holds the door for Helena, who smiles and dips her head in a bow of thanks as she brushes past into the room. Myka follows her and the door clicks closed and there’s something final about it, like the door made a decision.

Helena is crouched over her overnight bag at the foot of one of the beds and is digging through it with an energy that seems overwrought for the occasion, hands burrowing like a squirrel’s paws, the skin of her face pulled tight across her bones and teeth.

Myka wants to go to her. Wants to put her hands on those hands, and say, _stop_. Run her fingers along that jaw, over that brow, and say, _easy. Breathe. We're going to be okay. This is terrifying, what we're about to do, but we're going to survive it._

Instead, those fingers tighten around the handle of her suitcase, her index and middle fingers brushing the pad of her thumb.

She swallows hard and purposefully hoists her bag onto the luggage rack near the dresser. Her fingers, the same ones that had been touching Helena’s hand on the plane, wrap around the zipper and draw it back. The "archaeologist's" clothes she’d packed—the boots, the cargo pants, the t-shirt—are all there on the top, and she bundles them into her arms and says “I’ll take the bathroom” and then disappears behind the closed door.

Where she promptly collapses back against it. _Damn it, Bering._ She and Helena have changed in the same room at least a dozen times before, turning their backs on one another like teenagers in a locker room. She’s even turned around a little too quickly, once or twice, and seen Helena’s breast before Helena’s fingers could fasten her shirt over it.

And now she’s hiding in the bathroom.

She drops her clothes on the floor, including the heavy Frye boots, and resists the urge to kick them before putting them on. She almost allows herself the indulgence of fastidiously folding her clothing before exiting the bathroom, but Mrs. Frederic is in trouble, Mrs. Frederic is in _mortal danger_ , and Myka needs to get ahold of herself and this middle-school crush before somebody gets hurt.

She stuffs her clothes from the plane under one arm and opens the door with the other, stepping blindly out—

\--and into the wide-eyed, tensed-up body of Helena G. Wells.

Helena G. Wells who is still wearing her clothes from the flight, who is tugging nervously at her collar and her sleeves and smoothing the front of her pants, who is staring, mouth slightly agape, at Myka, with eyes that seem to have forgotten how to blink, who is breathing just slightly too fast—

"Myka," she says, beneath her breath. She twitches like a body electrified. Her arms cross over her torso, her hands fluttering down the opposite biceps, her fingers coming to dance against each other, then up, running through her hair, pushing it back. "Myka," she says, louder now, but thin, strained. "Myka, we mustn't go—I can't, Myka—dangerous, it's—Myka, _you_ mustn't, this is terrible, it's—"

"Helena," Myka says. She brings her hands to Helena's shoulders, cups those shoulders in her palms and squeezes, a little, pressing down, pressing Helena's feet into the ground, the solid ground. "It's okay. This is terrifying. I know it’s terrifying, but this is why you came back, right? To save the world?”

Helena has tugged the cuffs of her sleeves over the heels of her hands, crushing them into her palms with her fingers.

“And Mrs. Frederic,” Myka continues, “We have to save Mrs. Frederic.”

Helena’s eyes flit from Myka’s lips, as though she’d been reading them, to her eyes. “God, Irene,” Helena says.

Myka smiles as gently as she can, loosening her grip on Helena’s shoulders and sliding them down to rub her upper arms. "Yeah… Irene." It's weird to refer to her by her first name. "So we have to get going. Are you – will you be all right?"

Helena blinks at her once, twice. And the moment that follows is one that will follow Myka back to Colorado Springs, will haunt her for weeks, months.

Swiftly, too swiftly for Myka to process, Helena's hands move. One of her thumbs tucks into Myka's waistband at her hip, the other flies up to curl around the back of Myka's neck, and she steps forward and rises up onto her toes and presses her mouth to Myka's. It's a hard kiss at first, so that their lips are pressed together by their teeth, and then it softens and their heads both tip a little to the side, and their mouths open just enough and fire shoots through Myka when their tongues touch. And then Myka is backed against the counter inside the bathroom, and Helena has interwoven their legs and pressed their hips together and presses and devours hungrily at Myka's mouth and her hands flutter everywhere, her nails trail up Myka's arms and she squeezes Myka's shoulders and claws at her back and she feels frantic, too frantic, against Myka's body, but Myka—in what, she will later think, should have been the first sign that this thing with Helena was turning her into a different kind of person—Myka is too fully seduced, too fully confronted with what she had not known she wanted, her insides too tightly-wound, to act on the knowledge that even if this were a good time and place, Helena is not thinking clearly, and this should not be happening.

But when Helena's hand pulls from her spine, across her ribs and up to close possessively over Myka's breast—that, feeling, that delicious dropping sensation, is finally enough to jolt Myka to attention. She snakes her hands up between their bodies, lays her palms against Helena's chest, and pushes.

"No," she says, but it comes out like a gasp. She clears her throat and says it again more clearly: "No."

Helena licks her lips and blinks at her, her palms having slipped down Myka's arms to cup her elbows.

"Myka—" she says.

"Look at you," Myka rushes, "You're amped up and you're not thinking clearly and you don't know what you're—this isn't—" she swallows and steps back, dropping her hands to her sides and watching Helena's drop to her thighs, where they scrape along the fabric before coming to join one another by the buckle of her belt, fingers tangling and twisting.

"This wouldn't be right," Myka says. "We're both scared and high on adrenaline, and Mrs. Frederic is—" She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. "This—I need to go downstairs and meet Pete in the lobby. Get—get changed and we can—we'll talk about this after we get through today, okay?"

She drops her hands and looks down and turns on her heel and walks out.

She doesn't see Helena's eyes blacken, her jaw set, her face harden.

All she sees is the hotel room door. And then all she hears is that door closing behind her.

 

//

 

Pete is sipping coffee in the lobby when Myka approaches, wrapping her hair tie around the bottom of her braid while she walks.

"Where's H.G.? he asks.

"She's coming," Myka says, but she sounds a little too breathless for the question he just asked. "She's just changing her clothes." 

He cocks an eyebrow at her. "Everything okay?"

"What? Yeah." She rolls her neck. "Yeah. I'm just—I'm a little nervous about this snag. Aren't you?"

Pete downs the dregs of his coffee like a liquor shot and sets the cup down on the counter beside him. Wordlessly, he holds his hand up between them and watches it shake with adrenaline.

"Come now, Pete, surely an old stack of Egyptian ruins isn't so frightening as to warrant a reaction like that?"

Pete hadn't heard hear her sneak up behind them and apparently Myka didn't, either, because they both wheel around like a ghost just tapped them on the shoulder. But it's only H.G., wearing some weird beige trenchcoat thing, smiling at them like they're about to head off to summer camp instead of almost-certain death.

He can feel Myka swallow beside him. She takes a step forward but it's slow, more tentative than Myka usually is when they're on a mission like this.

"Helena—are you—"

"Fine, Darling! Let's be off, shall we?" She spins on her heel and stomps off toward the door without waiting for an answer, and on cue the ground drops, shifts, tilts, and Pete's stomach twists itself tight as a wrung-out rag. He clutches at his gut before he can stop himself.

"Pete?"

Myka's hand on his shoulder gives him something to reach for, a way to ground himself, and he pries open his clenched-shut eyes to look over at her eyes, which are looking at him, concerned.

"I've had nothing but bad vibes since we got on the plane, Mykes," he says.

Myka swallows. "This whole mission is terrifying. I think _I've_ had bad vibes."

Pete looks at her, really looks at her, the way she looks at him sometimes, like he can see more than what he's showing. And he sees there's more going on than she's saying, but he can't figure out what it is."

"Myka—"

"Are you coming?" Helena calls from the doorway.

Pete looks over at her, then back at Myka.

"Yeah," Myka calls back, but she's still looking at him, eyebrows pulled in toward each other. "Let's go?" she says, more quietly, to him.

Pete nods, and they follow H.G. out the door.

 

//

 

The right eye of Horus is the Eye of Ra, god of the sun, whose symbol brings protection and good health.

The left eye of Horus is the Eye of Thoth, god of the moon, who lords over the realms of knowledge and mediates the worlds of good and evil.

Warehouse 2 remembers: the Eye of Thoth is the most dangerous artifact within its walls.

To stare into the Eye of Thoth is to be confronted, at great force, with all that is good and evil in one's nature: the altruism and the selfishness, the euphoria and the grief, the peace and the rage. To stare into the Eye of Thoth is to suffer the brutal, powerful strength of one's most visceral impulses.

The Eye does not distinguish good people from bad. It may inspire good people to do bad things, or evil people to repent, but the Eye does not compel action. The Eye compels emotion, and that emotion compels action.

Some who stare into the Eye are overwhelmed with the desire to cling to their loved ones, to worship their deities, to apologize for their mistakes.

But some who stare into the Eye murder their neighbours or their relatives, set fire to their crops, slaughter their slaves, start devastating wars.

When Warehouse 2 shut itself down, buried itself within the earth, it sought to protect the world from the power of the Eye of Thoth.

Three visitors brought it back.

The Eye confronted Pete Lattimer with the depth of his fear of mortality and the extent of his capacity for love.

The Eye confronted Myka Bering with the depth of her own self-doubt and her desire to be accepted and respected.

The Eye confronted Helena Wells with the power of her unresolved grief, and the overwhelming weight of the idea that the world is unjust.

Helena Wells intended to use the Minoan Trident when she went into the bronze, unable to rescue her daughter.

She did not intend to use it when she befriended Myka Bering.

She intended to use it when she worked with James MacPherson.

She did not intend to use it when she saved the life of Claudia Donovan.

She intended to use it when she witnessed the plight of teenage prostitutes and addicts in Queens.

She did not intend to use it when she rescued Artie Nielsen from imprisonment in Russia.

She intended to use it when she was imprisoned in a doorless, windowless room by the Regents.

She did not intend to use it when she was reinstated as a Warehouse agent.

She intended to use it when she faced the repeated judgment and wrath of Artie, whose life she had saved.

She did not intend to use it when she laughed with Myka over lobster dinner in Maine.

She intended to use it when she learned of the mistreatment Myka had suffered at the hands of her own father.

When she pressed herself against Myka, pressed her lips against Myka's in a Cairo hotel room, she desperately hoped not to it.

When Myka pushed her away, she feared she might not be able to stop herself.

When she illuminates the Eye of Thoth and stares into its blue, fiery depths, all hope is lost.

 

//

 

When Pete emerges from Warehouse 2, he is driven to, above all else, call Kelly, tell her he's okay, tell her how much she means to him.

When Myka emerges from Warehouse 2, she can think of almost nothing but the need to assuage her guilt, her sense of inadequacy

(the questions of how many things, how many hundreds of things, she could have done differently to have seen Helena, to have stopped her, before this could have happened).

 

//

 

There is no glee, no perverse joy, in causing destruction.

What there _is_ is a profound sense of satisfaction.

A maniacal compact bent on destruction, delivered to a warm veterinarian who works toward healing, carries a satisfying sense of symmetry, nothing more.

There is something clean, concise, pearlescent about the complete destruction of the world.

 

//

 

The Eye of Ra is sometimes called Wadjet, which translates, literally, to "the green one," who rises like a cobra in protection of her people of the lower delta of the Nile.

The teachings of the Eye of Thoth reverberate through a woman in the Yellowstone caldera, who holds a trident in one hand and a gun in the other.

Perhaps the Eye of Thoth recognizes Wadjet in the green of the eyes that stare back from either side of the barrel of that gun. Perhaps it recognizes the Eye of Ra in the woman that rises up in protection of the people she serves.

Perhaps the Eye of Thoth and the Eye of Ra remember that they are both the eyes of Horus, two halves of the face of a single sky god.

Perhaps this is why a proud and devastated woman drops her weapons and collapses, sobbing, to the mud of the floor of a barely-dormant volcano.

Perhaps this is why a proud and devastated woman seizes those weapons and stumbles back, scarcely able to breathe, scarcely able to believe what she has done, as though _she_ is the one responsible for the near-destruction of the earth.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since I first saw "Buried" I've thought there was something artifact-y about that glowing blue ball, because right before Helena teslas everybody, when she's standing there looking at it, she looks absolutely mesmerized. I'm not saying the blue ball made her do it, but I've always felt like it was some kind of trigger.


	11. A Cure for Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I had cultivated her friendship," Helena says, eventually. "I knew I'd need help to work my way in, but she…" She swallows. "My teacher, Caturanga, always believed that the best Warehouse agents are those who can look at something, anything, not for what it is, but or what it could be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glad I could get this up today, on the day that Hermitstull's awesome [The Vodka Made Me Do It](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1015956/chapters/2017734) ficlet series hit a mind-boggling 20,000 views! Congratulations, dude.
> 
> Please note the rating change, T->M. I'm being conservative by upping it here, I think, but I the rating change was going to need to happen for a later chapter anyway and there's content in this chapter that's borderline.
> 
> I actually speak French pretty well but my writing is rusty so forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes, s'il-vous-plaît.
> 
> Also, I did some poking around to try to learn about racism in 19th-century Parisian hospitals and wasn't able to find much info, so my portrayal here is completely fictitious. If anyone knows more than me and has any constructive feedback about what I've written, I'd love to hear it. I'm certainly not above going back and making changes.

Vincent accompanies Helena to Paris. Her brother Charles meets them on the platform, and his eyes are swollen, bloodshot. Helena strides up to him, the confidence in her movement belied by the disarray of her hair, spilling from its hastily-tied knot.

"Charles?" she says, voice tired but curling up in unspoken question, imbued, perhaps, with the hope that he might smile and say "Fooled you!" and produce Christina from up his sleeve, as in a magic trick.

He doesn't do that. He shakes his head and looks down.

Helena nods once and leans into him, and he puts his arm over her shoulders, and they begin to walk, together, toward the exit.

"Wait," Crowley says.

They stop and turn around in tandem to face him.

"What can I do?" Crowley asks.

Charles blinks at him for a moment, then looks at Helena. Helena blinks at him, too, then looks down and shakes her head.

"Go home, Vincent," she says. "Just… go home. I'll see you in London."  She turns around, away from him, and resumes her walk to the exit.

Vincent turns to Charles, who is still standing there, looking at him. "Let me help," he says, turning his hat in his hands. "I would like to help."

Charles turns to look at Helena's retreating form, and then back to Crowley. "I don't think she…" he shrugs.

"She… yes. Very well." Vincent swallows, then reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out his fountain pen, and fumbles in a different pocket for a scrap of paper. "My address," he says, writing quickly. He hands the card to Charles. "If there's anything… if you could keep me abreast of…." He shrugs and sighs. "I will gladly refund you the cost of the occasional telegram."

"Oh, nonsense," Charles says. He eyes the card, then tucks it into his own pocket. "I'll do my best," he says. "Now—" he tilts his head toward the exit through which Helena has disappeared.

"Yes," Vincent nods.

Charles turns on his heel and begins to stride out of the station.

"Mr. Wells," Vincent calls.

Charles turns back, eyebrows raised in question.

"I… I'm so terribly sorry for your loss," Vincent says.

Charles tips his head in acquiescence, and turns, wordlessly, toward the exit again.

 

//

 

Charles suggests that they go to the hospital where Sophie has been admitted.

"Absolutely not," Helena says. "I want to go to the house."

"There's nothing at—"

"I want to go to the house," she says again, louder.

So Charles sighs, and shrugs, and gives the cab driver the address.

In perhaps the greatest and most tragic irony of the whole ordeal is that virtually nothing was stolen. A few candlesticks from the dining room, some drawers left upended in the drawing room.

The fireplace poker. Not stolen. Taken by the police from where it had been dropped beside Christina's body.

Helena flies through the house like the wind itself, opening all the doors and looking into all the rooms while Charles waits in the foyer. Once she has thoroughly upended everything not already upside-down she thunders down the stairs to him.

"Where is she?"

"Helena—"

"Where is my daughter?"

Her eyes are wide, so wide that he can see the whites all the way around her irises, and in his distant memory he hears the sounds of stiff leather restraints rattling against the metal frame of a hospital bed; the sound of her voice, Helena's voice, wailing overtop of it.

"At the mortuary," he says, softly.

"At the mortuary!" she exclaims, her hands threading into her hair, breath coming in faster gasps, "you would send her to the mortuary before I could—before she—"

"HELENA." He grasps her by both shoulders and holds them firmly, his voice loud but, he hopes, not threatening, because he has never quite seen her like this but he has seen her in lighter shades of this and she's hard enough _then_ to reason with.

She jolts in surprise but then stills and stares back at him, eyes like a deer's.

"Helena," he says, softer. "It's summer. It's hot. The mortuary couldn't wait. You know that. The service will be tomorrow."

Helena stares at him wide-eyed, and her lips shake as she breathes through them. "Sophie," she says, eventually. "We must go and see Sophie."

Charles nods. "Yes."

 

//

 

Then, light. Bright light, and movement.

Throbbing pain, in the back of the skull.

Nothing again.

Light, noise.

Then, more light, noise, and: “ _Tu te réveilles, en fin, quoi?_ ”

Sophie doesn’t understand those words, those sounds. She opens her mouth and it’s dry as sand. Her eyelids feel thick, her ears stuffed with cotton wool. She shifts her head and it hurts, and her neck is sore and stiff.

Her eyelids, crusted, part. The ceiling is far away. Below the ceiling is a face, an unfamiliar face, with expressionless eyes, looking down at her.

A finger pulls at her eyelids, one after the other, and then the face disappears.

A voice: “ _La nègre se réveille. Où est Amélie?”_

Sophie doesn’t know those words but one is familiar, sounds like.... She closes her eyes.

Movement, her blanket shifts. Sophie lifts her lids slowly, again.

“'ello, madame,” says a voice, different, young, female, heavily accented. Her face smiles. “I am Amélie. You are in the Hopital Sacré Coeur de Paris. I am a, euh, a nurse. You have been hit in the head.”

Hospital. Sophie doesn’t like hospitals. Sophie’s lips part, her tongue moves. “No,” she says.

The girl’s smile fades. She rolls her eyes, a little. “Your friend said he would come back soon.”

Then, more people near her feet. Movement. Amélie looks away, Sophie can’t… she can’t quite… “No,” she says again, louder.

“ _C’est son époux_ ,” says another voice.

And then: “ _Oui, s’il vous plaît, éxpliquez-moi ce qui est arrivé a ma femme.”_

That voice is familiar. Familiar, but strange, a different language.

She lets her eyes slip closed again while voices near her feet slide into, over, around one another. Then, on her hand, pressure, warm, dry. She rolls her head over—through the echoes of pain in her skull—and pries her lid open.

“Sophie,” Caturanga says, with a small smile.

Sophie’s mouth parts slowly. “Rajinder. I don’t want—”

Caturanga curls his fingers into her palm. “Don’t speak,” he says. “Just rest.” He leans closer.

“Stay?” Sophie asks. “I don’t like… hospitals.”

Caturanga’s mouth twitches. “I’ll stay,” he says. “Just rest.”

 

//

 

Charles is relieved to see that, when they arrive in the hospital ward, Sophie is not alone: Mr. Caturanga, whom Charles had telegrammed in London when he also telegrammed Mr. Crowley in Marseilles, sits beside her bed, facing her, his hat in his lap.

This, however, is not what Helena comments upon. What she says, far too loudly for Charles's taste, is "What in God's name is she doing in a ward? Charles, didn't you offer to pay them for a private room?"

Charles swallows and grits his teeth because yes, he offered to pay them for a private room. He offered to pay them double the cost of a private room, but at the end of the day it was all he could do to convince them to admit her at all and not to refer her to one of the charity hospitals several miles away, across the river.

But Charles is spared the need to explain when Mr. Caturanga stands up and reaches for Helena's hand. "Miss Wells," he says, placating, "My wife has no need for a private room."

Helena blinks at him. "Your wife?"

And Caturanga replies with forced joviality that does not quite reach his tired, reddened eyes: "Of course, _my wife_. They wouldn't have let me in to see her if she weren't my wife, Miss Wells!"

If Charles had needed more evidence that Helena was exhausted, spent beyond belief, it comes with the sight of her struggling to process Mr. Caturanga's words, and then finally having the pieces click, the hidden meaning uncovered.

"Of—of course," Helena says. "How is _your wife_ , Mr. Caturanga?"

Mr. Caturanga sighs. “Awake, and then not, and then awake again, and then not.”

“Awake,” says a voice, quiet and groggy, from beneath them, and all three of their heads wheel around to where Sophie blinks slowly at them.

“Hush,” Caturanga says, sitting back down in his chair and pressing his hand to her bandaged forehead. “Stay quiet.”

“I don’t want to be here,” Sophie rasps. “Take me home.”

“Sophie,” Caturanga says, voice strained. “You can’t. You’ve been hurt.”

“I don’t like hospitals,” Sophie says. “They aren’t… helping me. Here. I want to go home.”

Charles opens his mouth to intervene but before any sound comes out, a tall, thin man bustles between him and the bed. He fits a monocle to his eye and Charles can feel Helena tense beside him as the man bends over Sophie, pulls at one eyelid then the other. Wordlessly, he pulls on her shoulder until she rolls onto her side. He slides the bandage on her head up (Charles recognizes a few of the words he mutters to himself, like “cheveux” (hair) and “espèce” (kind, or type, or… species?)) and prods at the base of her skull.

Sophie hisses, and Mr. Caturanga jumps to his feet. “Qu’est-ce que vous faites, monsieur?” (Charles understands that much: “What are you doing, sir?”)

“ _Je vérifie la condition de son crâne_ ,” the doctor says, without looking up. “ _Ça va guérir. L’inflammation est déjà réduite._ ”

(Far too much, far too fast, for Charles to catch more than a few words – skull, heal, inflammation already reduced.)

The doctor stands and steps back, unceremoniously releasing Sophie’s shoulder so she drops back against the mattress – but this time she cries out.

“Sophie,” Helena murmurs, dropping to her knees beside the bed and bringing her hands to Sophie’s hand. Sophie’s head shifts slowly, her eyes travel to Helena’s face.

“I can’t be here, Helena,” she says, quiet and pained. “They won’t help me. They may hurt me.”

Charles swivels his head to glance around the ward; sees nurses fluffing pillows, smiling at patients, bringing them broth and water, sees a doctor smiling as he prods a woman's abdomen.

He looks back at this stern-faced doctor and his rough hands, and remembers the exasperated tone of the nurse who had helped them earlier.

He looks at Mr. Caturanga, who, for the only time in their acquaintanceship, looks fully adrift.

“All right,” Helena says, and Sophie’s shoulders sink into the mattress, relieved.

Mr. Caturanga looks at the doctor. “E _lle veut retourner à la maison pour completer sa guérisson_.” (Charles understands “return” and “house” and “healing.”)

The doctor nods, and shrugs, says something about documents, and walks away.

In his aftermath Charles finds himself, and it seems the other find themselves, strangely rooted, unable to move away, but with nothing to do here. He should go to the priest, he thinks, he should take Helena to the priest now she’s here, and perhaps Mr. Caturanga as well, because apparently he speaks French better than either Helena or himself, though it seems best that they leave Mr. Caturanga here with Sophie. He is pondering this, trying to decide what to do next, when he hears the slight squeak of Sophie’s bedframe moving, and he looks down and Helena’s hands are wrapped tighter around Sophie’s and Helena says, “Please, Sophie, you must tell me what happened.”

“Miss Wells,” Mr. Caturanga says sternly, a reprimanding father. “This is hardly the time—“

“My _daughter_ , Caturanga,” Helena says louder, “I need to know what happened to my daughter!”

On the bed, Sophie’s eyes fly open. “Something’s happened to Christina?” she asks. “What’s happened?”

“You must know!” Helena says, louder now. “Only you were there! You must know! You must!”

“Helena,” Sophie says, strained. “Helena. You’re hurting me.”

“Tell me what happened!” Helena is almost shouting now. Charles steps forward to put a hand on her shoulder: “Helena…”

“Don’t you ‘Helena’ me, Charles, she’s the one who knows what happened! The only one!”

“Helena,” Sophie says, more pained, and Charles sees now that Helena’s grip on Sophie’s hand is white-knuckled.

“Miss Wells!” Mr. Caturanga says, louder. “Let go of her!”

It’s a bizarre echo-chamber of versions of Helena’s name and Helena herself saying, “You must know! Tell me!” over and over again, and there are two nurses approaching them determinedly, to tell them to quiet down, no doubt, so Charles leans down and puts his hands over Helena’s, over Sophie’s, and begins to work her fingers loose.

Helena is resistant, first, to his touch, but then she is not resistant anymore; she drops Sophie’s hand (he sees Sophie flex her fingers a few times) and silences her miserable litany and grips, instead, the edge of the sheets, her forehead tipping down until it rests against the mattress between them.

“Helena?” Sophie says. But Helena does not respond.

Charles looks over at Mr. Caturanga to find Mr. Caturanga already looking at him. Charles nods, once, and Mr. Caturanga nods back, and Charles bends down and puts his hands on Helena’s shoulders and says, “We’ve an appointment to attend, Helena.”

Helena sits up faster than he expects. He expects reddened, swollen eyes from crying quietly against the sheets, but is unsettled to find, instead, perhaps the most vacant expression he has ever seen from her.

“Yes,” she says, shrugging out from under his hands like an irritated cat and rising to her feet.

“Will somebody please explain to me what’s happening?” Sophie asks quietly.

“I will,” Mr. Caturanga says, “Once we see Mr. and Miss Wells on their way.”

“Come, Charles,” Helena says, her diction preternaturally crisp. “Appointments, yes?”

“Yes,” Charles says, and they both turn to walk away when Mr. Caturanga says, suddenly, “Helena!”

She stops, turns, and looks at him archly. “Yes?”

“I’ve brought this for you, from London. It is a… curiosity, as it were? But a useful one." 

Mr. Caturanga holds out an envelope with a small bulge in its centre. Helena touches it, presses to feel its contours, then nods and tucks it inside her vest.

 

//

 

Caturanga stands and watches the Wellses make their way out of the ward, and then looks down at Sophie.

“The colours, Rajinder,” Sophie rasps, dry-throated. “What did you give her?”

“Just a babel fish,” he says. “She speaks some French, but not enough. I’m using one, too.”

“But the migraines, in her state—”

“I’ve given her written instructions not to remove the device until she returns to London where she can recuperate.”

“Why is she—for goodness’ sake, what’s happened?”

“Sophie.” He leans forward and rests his fingertips on the edge of the mattress, and then, with some presumption, takes her hand between his. She does not remove it. “What do you remember?”

Sophie blinks several times and swallows. “I was… I was sitting in the drawing room, writing a letter to Irene,” she says. “And then…” she winces. “Here.”

“Mr. Wells found you unconscious at the top of the stairs,” Caturanga says. “Near Christina’s room. Two days ago.”

Caturanga tells the story, as he heard it from young Mr. Wells, and by the end, Sophie—so unflappable, so stiff-upper-lipped, is quietly crying.

“I can’t remember,” she says quietly. “I failed her and I can’t even remember what happened.”

“You were unconscious, Sophie,” Caturanga says firmly. “You were trying to reach her when you were hit. I’m sure you did everything you could have done.”

Sophie shakes her head once then winces, her hand tightening around Caturanga’s and the other coming up to press at her forehead.

“Rest, now,” Caturanga says. “The doctor will be back soon with your release papers.”

“I can’t rest. I can’t rest. When is her service?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I must go." 

Caturanga sighs. “Yes,” he says. “Yes. We shall go.”  

 

//

 

Helena leads Charles halfway down the corridor to the exit before she breaks, suddenly, between one stride and the next. Charles catches her just before she crumbles, and he steers them to a metal bench along the wall, and there, under the scrutinizing glances of the nurses and the doctors, he holds his sister while she sobs, and then—blast it all—finds himself sniffling, then crying, and then sobbing uncontrollably into her hair.

 

//

 

Sophie leans into Caturanga in the cab from the hospital, the bumping and swaying of the two-wheeled carriage over the cobblestones clearly painful to her. They are nestled back in the bench, and Caturanga hadn’t been intending to do this until they returned to the hospital, but it pains him to see her wincing and occasionally groaning like this. He reaches into his coat pocket and begins to retrieve—

“Don’t you dare, Rajinder,” Sophie says through gritted teeth.

He sighs. “But you’re suffering.”

“Hippocrates’ splints?” She shifts a little. “I’ll sleep through the next three days, and miss the funeral. And I’ll have to explain to Charles how I come to be completely healed when I wake.”

“We should really explain the Warehouse to that poor lad.”

“We should,” Sophie agrees.

“Perhaps when we return to London.”

The concierge at the hotel desk glances displeasedly at Sophie when Caturanga asks for the key to his room, and Caturanga feels bile rise in his throat, his spine stiffening.

“You will have to share a room with Miss Wells tonight,” Caturanga says apologetically, when his hotel room has closed behind them. “I would have liked a fourth room for you but I knew the hotel wouldn’t—”

“It’s all right, Rajinder,” Sophie interrupts, as she goes to lean carefully on the bedpost. “I’ve lived in this body my entire life. The way white people respond to it is not new to me.”

Caturanga nods awkwardly. He’s had similar experiences, of course, but of a lesser scale, and of less frequency.

Sophie steps behind the screen in the corner of the room and Caturanga obligingly turns his back. He hears the swish and sigh of fabric moving, slowly, and then footsteps, shoeless and soft, making their way to the bed.

When he turns around, Sophie has the blanket pulled up to her chin and her eyes are closed, her breathing already evening into sleep. Caturanga had purchased a newspaper purchased for the trip; he draws it from his case in the closet and sits at the table by the window to read.

 

//

 

Sophie awakens, slightly, later, when there is movement in the room and the sound of hushed voices. Doors open, close, open again, things shuffle around; Sophie opens her eyes to slits, fighting out most of the light, just enough to be aware of the movement, and closes them again. They will wake her soon, she thinks, to move to the room she will share with Helena.

But nobody wakes her. Things settle again to silence and stillness and darkness.

Something feels wrong, though, it feels not-quite-right. This day has been wrong, but something feels worse. She shifts a little, winces against the pain of the movement and in that process accidentally opens her eyes—

And startles, violently, to see a shape, tall and looming over her, its aura a red so dark it verges on blackness.

Sophie swallows. “Helena.”

But Helena, standing in her nightdress, says nothing. She stares for a moment longer, as though possessed. Then firmly, decisively, and silently, she pulls back the blanket, places herself on the other side of the mattress, first sitting, then laying down. She lays the blanket over herself and closes her eyes, but that darkness, the red darker than blood or rust, shows Sophie that she is not sleeping, she is not even resting.

And Sophie is still tired but she lies awake, too, now. She thinks of that dark hair, that freckled face, that she will never see again.

She does sleep eventually, though. When she wakes in the morning the sun is high and Rajinder is sitting by the window seat again, with his paper. Her head, still sore, is aching less.

“I’m still in your room,” she says quietly.

He turns to her from his paper and smiles. “No,” he says. “I traded rooms with Miss Wells so that you could stay here. She was… amenable.”

Sophie closes her eyes. “She was suffering last night.”

“She was,” Caturanga says with a small nod. Sophie hears him shift in his chair, and when she opens her eyes again he has turned to face her. “How about you?”

“My head feels somewhat better.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but that’s not what I was asking about,” he says.

Sophie blinks.

“You were all but a mother to that child, Sophie.” His head is tilted toward her, and the light from the window reflects from his scalp and his shoes.

The light doesn’t make her squint today, like it did yesterday.

Slowly and carefully, Sophie sits up in the bed. She removed her dress last night but was too tired, too sore, too sad to change into her night-dress; she sits up, now, in the long chemise she had been wearing under her dress the previous day, whens he left the hospital. Caturanga immediately turns in his head, averting his eyes.

She doesn’t expect it—it just comes over her, not like a wave but like a volcano erupting from somewhere deep inside her: she leans forward until her elbows are on her knees and she begins, almost silently, to cry.

Seconds pass. Then she hears footsteps, and the bed shifts beside her. A warm hand touches her shoulder.

“I should have sent Irene, or Marie, instead of coming myself,” Rajinder says, apologetically, and Sophie wants to lean into him, wants to let him put his arms around her, wants to let herself be warmed by him, but she’s in her undergarments and it’s barely appropriate that they’re in the same room, never mind that he is touching her, even like this, in comfort.

“My sister has a business and my daughter has an infant,” she says, as her breathing calms. She also thinks: neither of them would have been given a hotel room. She pushes away her tears with the tips of her fingers. “I failed that child, Rajinder,” Sophie says. “I failed her and I can’t even remember how I did it.”

“You can’t remember,” he says quietly. “You don’t know that you failed her.”

She looks over at him, now, her gaze still blurry, her eyes feeling hot and dry. “I’m happy that you’re here.”

His colour, which has been pale green, warms into mauve.

“I feel selfish for it,” he says, “but I’m very happy to be here, too.”

 

//

 

The priest for the service is accompanied by a deacon who translates most of the process into English.

Charles cries. He can't help himself, doesn't want to help himself, but Helena, beside him, is still and tall and straight as an obelisk.

The service is small. Tiny. Charles, Helena. The owner of the bookshop near the house, and his wife. Two police constables who have been investigating the murder. Eight people standing in a tight circle around a too-small casket.

A few minutes into the service, the chapel door opens. Charles turns to look and smiles because it's Sophie, in a bath chair, pushed by Mr. Caturanga. The deacon stutters a little in his translation but Charles raises his arm in invitation. The chair stops a few steps away and Mr. Caturanga leans down, offering Sophie his arm. She takes it and stands slowly, carefully, and they move into the circle.

Charles smiles tightly at them, nodding once, looking just long enough to see Sophie smile back and then, upon looking at Helena, drop the smile completely. Charles glances over at Helena to find she is looking at Sophie, her face firm, tight, unsmiling.

He can't, doesn't want to deal with this today. He turns his attention back to the priest. 

When the service ends, Charles steps forward to take one of the handles on the casket; so do the bookshop owner and both of the policemen. But Helena steps forward too, she grasps the handle nearest her before the policeman can reach it.

 _"Madame_ ," the officer says, " _S'il-vous-plaît, ne vous épuisez pas."_ Charles understands: Ma'am, please, do not tire yourself.

Helena wheels on him, her eyes narrowed to slits, and growls, " _Monsieur, me refuserez-vous cette dernière opportunité pour porter ma fille dans mes bras?"_

Charles does not know, never knew before the conversation with the priest yesterday, that Helena spoke such marvelous French. He hadn't had the opportunity to hear her use it for more than occasional words and phrases at shops and restaurants, before. But he understands well enough that she's telling the policeman that he will not deny her the chance to carry her daughter one last time.

The policeman glances at his partner, who tips his head and shrugs. Helena takes the handle by Christina's right shoulder and the four carry the casket out to the mausoleum.

When the ceremony is complete, the cemetery workers left to seal off the tomb, Helena turns quickly on her heel and begins to stride away. She brushes past Sophie, who sits in the bath chair.

"Helena," Sophie says, raising a hand toward her, but Helena marches past, willfully ignorant, toward the gate.

Charles pauses beside Sophie. "I can barely think," he says, "I can't imagine what she's—how she's—"

"She needs time," Mr. Caturanga says. "She'll come back around, given time."

Sophie swallows. "I know," she says, and there is a softness, a warble to her voice that Charles has never heard before. He looks down and Sophie's eyes are following Helena, glistening. Charles looks up at Helena again, just in time to see her stumble once, twice, catch herself on the corner of a tomb and crumple to her knees on the stone floor, sobbing.

Charles excuses himself and jogs over to her, his hands reaching out for her shoulders, but—

"Don't touch me!" she growls, jerking her body away. "Don't bloody touch me," she says, her voice cracking. She wraps her arms around herself and she rocks, back and forth, back and forth, her head bowed, mouth open wide in a strange, near-soundless parody of a scream, breaths occasionally bursting forth in hiccups, her face wet with tears and mucus and a string of saliva hanging from her lip. 

Charles remembers her, drugged and grey in a Bethlem hospital chair, and thinks this might be worse, even, than that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Myka has not frozen in the field since Sam and she will not freeze now, even though she wants to, standing as she is between a psychopath who needs to be incapacitated and her boss who's bleeding from the shoulder.

Myka lays the trident down with care, beyond Helena’s reach, because after all this there's no way she's going to accidentally trip and drive it into the ground for the third time. Helena is still on her knees, shaking, and Myka is looking at her but thinking of Leo, thinking of Sam, thinking of Claudia shaking in a bathtub full of ice, thinking of Pete waking up from unconsciousness and electrocution to ask _Myka_ if _she’s_ okay.

All in a flash, she thinks of everything she has lost and everything she has almost lost. And she thinks of Helena’s mouth against hers and Helena’s hands on her and how, in that moment, Myka had come so close to letting herself forget everything.

She wants to go to Artie first but she knows that the first priority is always to neutralize the threat to prevent more injuries, so she tucks the gun into her holster (unsnapped, safety off) as she tugs Helena to her feet and pats her down, pulling her wallet, keys, and disposable cell phone out of her jacket and tucking them into her own pockets. Helena is pliant, floppy as a rag doll when Myka pulls her jacket off and says “Take off that damn vest.” Helena does. She stands in her camisole and hands the vest to Myka without lifting her eyes from the ground, and Myka balls it and stuffs it into a neutralizer bag. It sparks wildly but when it settles, Helena is still unharmed and Artie is still bleeding.

“Dammit,” Myka groans. She pulls a zip-cuff out of her pocket—she never carried zip cuffs before she started chasing H.G. Wells, pickpocket and lock-pick extraordinaire—and tightens the loops around Helena’s wrists, behind her back.

“Get down,” Myka orders, and Helena drops to her knees, as if before a firing squad.

Myka steps around to Helena’s front and bends down to her with one hand on the butt of her gun. Bends, doesn’t crouch, and she doesn’t bend all the way, because she knows a thing or two about the difference between leveling with somebody and intimidating them.

“Don’t you dare move,” Myka says, and Helena flinches, turning her head away as though Myka had raised her hand and threatened to strike. From this angle, and this close up, she can see the wetness on Helena’s cheeks, the redness of her eyes, the completely undignified snot running from her nose, and to her complete and utter revulsion she finds herself wanting to push those tears away with her fingertips, to pull that quivering body into her own. In her chest she feels a tension, a push and pull that wants to burst out of her as a cry that might be frustration, might be grief, might be rage.

She swallows that and goes to Artie, shrugging out of her jacket and wadding it up to press hard into his shoulder. With one hand she fumbles in Artie's jacket for the Farnsworth and uses it to tell Claudia to order a medevac for Artie (“Yes, he's hurt. Yes, he's going to be okay. Yes, we got her—just get us the helicopter, please, Claudia!”)

It arrives in under ten minutes and Myka’s jacket is completely ruined but the paramedics say he looks good, she did well, it’s not as bad as it could have been, and then they’re gone, leaving behind Myka and H.G. and the trident, surrounded by dirt and pebbles and dead leaves blown away by the wind of the whirling blades. Helena is still kneeling in the dirt with her wrists bound and Myka wonders whether she’s moved at all, lifted her head at all.

She pulls the band from her hair and shakes loose what’s left of her braid, and then twists it into a knot on the back of her head and re-fastens it. She goes and picks up Helena’s jacket where she had dropped it earlier, and stands beside Helena.

“Are the cuffs too tight?”

Helena doesn’t acknowledge her.

“Helena. I asked you if the cuffs are too tight.”

“Does it matter?” Helena asks, with surprising clarity.

Myka fights not to roll her eyes. “Not if you don’t want it to. Come on. We’ve got a long walk back to the car.” She turns to pick up the trident. She looks at it closely, sees how the cross-piece is screwed into the spear.

“A little,” Helena says down, to the dirt, and clears her throat.

“A little what?” Myka doesn’t look up.

“A little tight.”

Myka finishes disassembling the trident and then steps back to Helena. “Stand up.” Helena does. She checks and, yes, the cuffs are tight enough to chafe, especially given that Helena's wrists are gritty with dirt from the ground where she’d fallen. Myka fishes her pocket knife and another pair of cuffs out of her pocket, slips the new pair on and makes sure she can fit two fingers between the plastic and Helena’s skin at both wrists."This feel better?"

Helena nods, and Myka uses her knife to cut the tighter cuffs away.

Myka shakes the dirt out of Helena's jacket and, for a moment, thinks about putting it on, because it's cold to be standing out here in a t-shirt, and her own jacket is with Artie on a helicopter that's probably about to touch down in Idaho by now. Helena is cold too, of course, covered in gooseflesh in her thin-strapped camisole.

Myka wants not to care that Helena is cold. She wishes for a moment that she had a bad-cop in her; that she could look at someone who had caused suffering and death and feel okay with making that person suffer.

She needs anger, she thinks. She needs more anger. And it’s a hell of a realization to notice that anger isn’t the predominant emotion she feels right now.

She calls up the image of those three students who died, desiccated in the bazaar, on Helena's orders. Calls up the image of the boy's family, his younger sister. Calls up the memory of waking up in the ancient Warehouse to find herself and Pete left to drown in sand—

And that's a dangerous thought because the first thing she thought at the time, after _What the hell happened?_ was _What have I done?_ and _Oh God, she kissed me. Just a few hours ago, she_ kissed _me._

For everything that had been wrong about that kiss—the time, the place, Helena’s state at the time—Myka, in the moment, had felt such promise in it, promise for what it might have held, for them, had they shut down Warehouse 2 and emerged, together, into the desert sand, had they returned to that hotel room together that night.

There was only one moment before this, in this whole mess, where Myka had thought she might cry, and that was when she had overheard Pete on the phone with Kelly, telling her that he loved her. It wasn’t until later that she realized they were words she wanted to hear, words she wanted to speak, in a completely different context and with a completely different person. But she won’t cry. She won’t. She stands still, behind Helena and a little off to the side, and tries to regulate her breathing, carefully, without sighing or panting, so that Helena can’t hear. Then she steps forward and drapes the jacket over Helena’s shoulders. Its hem comes down to Helena’s palms, and were she to lace her fingers together, an inattentive passerby might simply assume that she had draped her jacket that way for fashion.

“Myka.” The name comes out somewhere between a question and an admonishment. “Take it. You’re cold.”

Myka blinks at her, incredulous, then shakes her head and points to the place where the trail bends near the clearing. “I don’t need tourists staring at you and asking questions. Start walking.”

It’s a little over two miles back to the parking lot. It’s Myka, not Helena, who gets the most uncomfortable attention from hikers, since she’s carrying the trident pieces and no longer has a jacket to cover her holstered sidearm. After the first round of nervous looks, Myka opens her badge and hooks it to her belt, and after that, gets a lot of tight smiles and people otherwise avoiding her eyes.

It’s not unlike being back in her more traditional Secret Service work, that way.

She follows Helena and they don’t say a word to each other besides “turn left” or “go straight.” The sun had been approaching the horizon by the time they began the walk, and by the time they get to the parking lot, it's dark. Myka uses the key fob to unlock the SUV, which makes its presence known with a bright flash of lights.

“What, no paramilitary?" Helena says dryly. "Are the Americans more civilized than the Russians, after all?”

Myka doesn’t indulge her humor. “You’re no longer a severe-enough threat to justify the risk of that visibility.”

“Please. You summoned a helicopter for Artie.”

“Hikers get medevaced out of parks sometimes. That’s way less questionable than an armed arrest with a SWAT team in a major tourist zone.” Myka gestures vaguely to the still-busy lot, with dozens or more people returning to their cars as the park closes, and she can’t help but think, all of these people would have died almost instantly. They wouldn’t even have lasted to take their chances in the fallout.

Myka opens the SUV trunk and lays the trident pieces inside; then she goes to the side door pulls two water bottles from the box under the passenger seat. It’s been a lot of hiking, a lot of rushing today and these past few days, and now that it’s almost over it feels as though all the stress and exhaustion have dropped on her in the form of intense, cotton-mouthed thirst (she refuses to think of deserts, to think of sand). She opens bottle and chugs most of it, standing there by the open door, and then caps it, leans forward and drops it into the cup holder in the center console. Then she tips the other bottle toward H.G. “Thirsty?”

Helena licks her lips and nods.

Myka opens the back door of the SUV and gestures Helena inside, closing the door when they’re both seated on the bench. Then she unscrews the cap and puts one hand on the back of Helena’s neck. “Sorry, no straws,” she says, and she brings the bottle to Helena’s lips and tips it carefully up. Not carefully enough: the water pours out faster than expected and splashes Helena in the face. Helena jerks back, sputtering, and then twists her head to try to dry her cheeks and chin against the shoulder of her jacket. Myka resists the urge to apologize. Their second try works better.

When the bottle is capped again, Myka belts Helena into her seat and is opening the door to climb out when Helena suddenly says, “I don’t suppose…?”

Myka turns back to look, and Helena shifts her arms, pinned between her body and the seat back.

Myka huffs an incredulous chuckle. “No.”

“You said I’m not a severe risk,” Helena says. “Couldn’t I be cuffed in front for such a long drive?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Myka snarls, louder than is strictly necessary, and her fist has pounded against the window of the open door before she could stop herself.

Helena drops her head and sags against the bench. “I wouldn’t try to hurt you. I couldn’t. Surely you know that now.”

There is a knife in Myka’s gut that’s been twisting, twisting tighter ever since she woke from that Tesla blast in Egypt, and now it feels like something finally wants to break, it wants to crack and let loose a ranting monologue of anger and hurt and incredulity, she wants to turn into a dragon and breathe fire into the air.

“I don’t know that at all,” Myka says finally, her eyes boring into Helena’s.  “What I know is that I’m over this self-pitying martyr shtick that you’ve been pulling since you decided not to end the entire world in that caldera. This?” Myka points back and forth between Helena and herself, “You did this, Helena. So don’t ask me for any sympathy, and don’t you _dare_ ask me for any trust. Because I neverwanted to be where we are right now.”

Helena’s gaze hardens. She nods once.

Myka sighs. “If you have anything else to say, say it right now. Because when I get behind the wheel, I’m turning the radio on and I don’t want to hear another word from you unless it’s to ask for water or the bathroom.”

Helena stares back evenly for a long moment, and then turns to face forward, hands wedged between her back and the bench.

Myka pinches the bridge of her nose. “We’ll stop often so you can move around, okay? If it gets really uncomfortable I can cuff you to the door handle, but I’ve only got one zip-cuff left so if I do that you can’t get out again until we get to the Warehouse.”

Helena remains impassive, staring forward, her jaw hardening.

“Fine,” Myka says, and shuts the door.

Behind the wheel, Myka delays just long enough to call Claudia, and then Pete, on the Farnsworth. Claudia says that Dr. Calder is on her way to Idaho for Artie. And Pete… Pete is a mess.

"My God, are you okay?" Myka asks him. Even through the grainy Farnsworth screen, she can see that he's been crying.

"You got her, right?" Pete replies.

Myka nods. "Yeah."

"Then I'm better than I was," Pete says. He shakes his head and swallows. "Kelly left me."

"Oh no, Pete. No." Myka glances up at her rearview and sees Helena's eyes fixed forward at the back of the empty passenger seat. "What happened?"

"I don't really want to talk about it. I just… I may not be able to be there when you bring H.G. in, Mykes. I'll want to hurt her. And I wouldn't, I would never do that, but I'm a little worried I might hurt myself instead. If I'm there."

Myka nods. "Okay. It's okay. You—you do what you need to do, okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Pete?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's order pizza when this is all done. And, I don't know, watch Porky's or something."

"You're the best, Mykes."

"You deserve the best, Pete."

When they hang up, she glances at Helena again, in the mirror, whose eyes are still fixed forward, unmoving.

For the full six-hour drive, Helena is all but silent. She asks for water twice and the bathroom once, and asks once for the opportunity to stand and stretch her arms and shoulders. When she climbs back into the car, after that, she lies down on the bench, facing the back, and seems, apparently, to sleep.

Myka is exhausted. She knows they should probably stop because before she even started this drive she'd already driven six hours, hiked four miles, and defused one apocalyptic psycho since the last time she slept. But if they stop for sleep, she's got to figure out what the hell to do with H.G. for the night and she'd rather just push through.

When Myka turns off the road onto the bumpy Warehouse driveway, Helena shifts, behind her, and begins to awkwardly work her way up into a sitting position. By the time Myka pulls into park Helena is upright, her hair shaken into place, and the doors are opening on the two large, unmarked SUVs and the towncar that Myka recognizes as belonging to Mrs. Frederic.

She switches off the ignition and as she turns to unbuckle her seatbelt Helena suddenly speaks: "Surely you know—you _must_ know—that there is at least one thing you can trust about me."

Myka pauses for a minute, then clicks open her seatbelt and reaches for the door handle. "You've been waiting this whole drive to deliver that parting line, haven't you?"

She opens the door and steps out before Helena can respond.

By the time she's made her way around the car, Helena is standing and flanked by two very large, uniformed guards, whom she eyes, one after the other, from beneath an arched brow.

"Gentlemen!" she says, her rakish grin firmly in place, "To what do I owe this honor?"

"Agent Wells."

The grin falls from Helena's face at the sound of Mrs. Frederic's voice, low and firm, and Myka marvels at Mrs. Frederic's power to bring to Helena's face first air of true chastisement that Myka has seen today.

Mrs. Frederic turns to Myka. "Do you have the trident?"

Myka nods. "Yeah, it's—hang on." She goes to the trunk and retrieves the pieces, and places them in Mrs. Frederic's outstretched hands.

Mrs. Frederic smiles. "That will be all, Agent Bering. Go get some rest. Thank you."

 

//

 

Irene stands with the butt of the trident staff resting near her foot, like a medieval knight with a spear, as she watches Agent Bering's vehicle drive away. Then turns to one of the guards.

"Remove her cuffs, please."

Helena rolls her eyes. "Better leave them on. Do you truly believe these brutes could keep me from hurting you?"

The guard beside her freezes, his pocket knife half-withdrawn. Irene can see his pulse thumping angrily in his neck.

"You won't hurt me, Agent Wells," she says.

Helena cocks an eyebrow at her. "And why is that?"

There are things that Helena doesn't know about herself. For example: the arching of her eyebrow is an expression she learned from Sophie, who learned it from her mother, who was also Irene's mother.

Irene gestures for the guard to cut the ties, and then arches an eyebrow richly at Helena and says, "Sophie."

"Sophie is dead." Helena says it matter-of-factly, rubbing her wrists and rolling her shoulders to release the cramping.

"Oh, don't I know it," Irene says. "A fact for which you have never forgiven yourself, and I am her closest living substitute. You would not hurt me." She turns to lead Helena into the Warehouse.

"Leena," Helena says, "is closer to her than you are."

Irene pauses, and then turns. "Before I let you anywhere near Leena, Agent Wells, I would kill you myself."

Helena swallows and looks down.

Irene leads Helena into Artie's office. On the desk is a thermos mug and a foil-covered plate, and beside that, a folded shirt.

Irene lays the trident pieces on the ground, and directs Helena to the desk chair. "Eat," she says. "Tea, and Leena's lasagna." She retrieves one of young Claudia's neutralizer spray-cans from where it's mounted on the wall and thoroughly douses the trident. She leaves it there, on the ground, to dry, and goes and positions herself carefully on the sofa.

Helena has buttoned the clean shirt over her camisole, leaving the dirty jacket over the back of the chair. She peels back the foil on the plate, now and picks up the silverware beside it, cutting off and chewing a bite with all the resentment of an adolescent obeying a parent. Then another bite, and another, and Irene can see Helena's face change as she recognizes how hungry she is, how long it's been since she's eaten. Irene watches as she clears her plate, and then takes a sip from the thermos mug.

"Come," Irene says, rising to her feet again. "You can bring that with you, but they're waiting."

Helena clutches the thermos between two hands as she rises to follow Irene through the stacks. The two guards flank her closely, like pallbearers.

They reach a door, and Irene stops and turns. She opens her mouth but is interrupted before she can make a sound.

"Will they bronze me again?"

Irene sighs. "I have pled your case as best I could, Helena," she says. "If you want an alternative to the bronze, they may be amenable. But you should know that the alternatives may not be any more humane."

Helena lets out a shaky breath, then squares her shoulders and stands tall. "Let's get on with it, then, shall we?"

Irene sits at the back corner while the regents question Helena. Kosan seems inclined toward some kind of clemency. Lattimer, as usual, is highly pragmatic. Some of the others are more vindictive. But Helena—Irene wavers between wanting to wrap her in a hug, and wanting to slap the arrogant smirk from her face.

"Tell us what you did, Agent Wells," Lattimer asks.

Helena smirks. "I tried to bring about an apocalypse."

Kosan tips his head to the side. "If your goal is to engender our sympathy, that's not the way to do it."

"The task of the Warehouse is too important to meddle in questions like sympathy, is it not, Mr. Kosan?" Helena leans forward against the table before her. "I was asked what I did, and I answered."

They talk for hours, assessing the details of Helena's timeline, the complexity of the case she had been building. Helena answers the questions as directly and succinctly as she can. Only once does she falter, and that's when she's asked about Agent Bering's report.

"I had cultivated her friendship," Helena says, eventually. "I knew I'd need help to work my way in, but she…" She swallows. "My teacher, Caturanga, always believed that the best Warehouse agents are those who can look at something, anything, not for what it is, but for what it could be." 

Irene can sense the passage of time through the Warehouse itself, despite the lack of windows in the room. She knows they are well into morning. She knows, too, that Artie will arrive within the hour, having travelled to Featherhead in a medical plane and now being driven back to the Warehouse from the airport in a hired car.

"Any final words before we deliberate, Agent Wells?" Kosan asks, finally.

Helena sits silent for a long time—so long that Irene begins to think she will not speak. But then she does. She says: "If you are at all inclined toward mercy: I would sooner die than go back into the bronze." 

Kosan smiles a small, sad half-smile. "We will take that into account."

 

//

 

The sun is coming up when Myka finally stumbles into the B&B, just in time to almost bump into Leena coming downstairs to start making breakfast.

"Hey, Myka," Leena says, "You're back."

Myka tries to smile. "Yeah." A dry chuckle. "I don't think I'll be down for breakfast."

For a second they just stand there looking at one another, Leena still standing on the bottom step so she's just the tiniest bit taller than Myka. Her head tilts to the side and then she reaches out, touching Myka's forearm just below the elbow. Myka feels, as she sometimes does with Leena, that she's being dissected, her skin peeled back to reveal… something, as Leena's eyes widen, and then relax into something that looks like recognition, or understanding.

"Oh, Myka. I’m—I’m sorry. I'm so sorry."

Myka drops her head. "Could you see it in her?"

"Sometimes," Leena says. "Sometimes not. But you—I should have paid more attention to you, shouldn't I? Because you've been feeling this for awhile, haven't you?"

Myka's eyes narrow. "Feeling what?"

"Feeling—" Leena cocks her head. "Oh. Crap. Look, I haven't had my coffee yet, and you're exhausted, and I—I shouldn't have said…" She steps back.

Myka presses he heels of her hands to her eyes. "Is this 'say obscure and random things to Myka day' or something? First H.G., now you?"

Leena steps down to the floor and moves closer to Myka. "I'm sorry." She brings her hands to Myka's shoulders. "There are things that aren't mine to say. Even if it's to you, about you."

Myka pulls away and turns on her heel, starting her trudge up the stairs. "God, Leena, I don't need this from you, too, right now. I really don't."

Myka doesn't even bother with pyjamas, she's so tired. It's all she can do to make herself brush her teeth before she undresses and collapses into the mattress. But as she lies there, exhausted, she can't sleep. When she closes her eyes she feels something cold and hard pressed to her forehead, and her lids fly open as if to make sure that nobody is, here, now, holding her at gunpoint.

But it's not the feeling of the gun that upsets her now. It's the face she sees beyond the gun, the eyes looking back in fear and loathing and… and… and then those eyes fade into different eyes, tearful eyes clutching a torch in a godforsaken underground cavern in Egypt, and then those eyes fade into frantic, wide eyes in a Cairo hotel room, and those eyes are getting closer, closer, and then Myka can't see them, can't see them because they are too close, can't see them because her own eyes are closed and her mouth is opening, it's opening to another mouth with lips that are fuller and softer than any lips she's ever kissed before.

Myka's eyes snap open. No. No. She can't be thinking this.

But she is thinking this, she is too tired to stop herself. Too tired to stop herself when her hand moves over and down her own body and slips between her legs. This isn't something she does very often, it's not something she needs very often, but apparently now, right now, is when her body has decided to make demands.

Okay, Myka thinks. If she's going to do this now then she's going to think about Sam, about how strong and firm and caring he was with her, but whens he imagines his mouth on her skin it doesn't have stubble—so no, no. She'll think about Kurt, then, an old high school standby, but when she imagines bringing her fingers to his head she imagines long, black hair, not the crew cut he'd had when she'd last seen him. She cycles through past boyfriends, movie star crushes, but her mind keeps tugging her back, back, to the scratching sounds of a pen against paper in a darkened hotel room, the soft hush of fingers moving against one another, to a pair of near-black eyes looking at her, not past a gun, but over a glass of wine, open and twinkling. She doesn't mean to let her mind go there, but it goes anyway, and once it's there, she can't pull away.  A half-day ago she arrested Helena for trying to end the world, an hour ago she handed her over to the authorities who will probably bronze her again, but now all Myka can think about is how Helena's precise, confident fingers would feel against her skin, what her breath would sound like in her ear, what her touch would feel like if it were buried—pressing—

She feels Helena's fingers inside her, feels Helena's breasts pressing against her own, Helena's grip in her hair, Helena's teeth at her earlobe when she comes against her own hand.

The endorphin-induced haze would make her sleep, she'd hoped, and it does, but one release can bring about another and it isn't until she sniffs that she realizes she's crying into her pillow. And now, exhausted and torpid under her blanket, she knows what she feels.

She won't give it words. Even when she's this exhausted, she won't even let herself think the words.

But she knows what she feels.

She manages a few hours of restless, shallow sleep. She gets up and showers and dresses in her crispest dress shirt and vest, and then pulls her hair into the most severe, professional twist she can manage.

Then she sits at her desk and writes a letter.

At the Warehouse, Pete looks surprisingly put-together for what he's been through, and Artie—well, he's in a bathrobe with his arm in a sling, and he's got a week's worth of pain pills in his pocket, but he's upright. The wound had been clean, perhaps because there was no actual bullet involved. It stitched closed easily.

Myka stands beside Pete in the early afternoon sun and tries to watch as Helena is marched off between two guards, head up, looking haughty as ever.

"D'you know where they're taking her?" Pete whispers, head tilted toward her. Myka can only shrug. She is staring down at the ground and, despite her best efforts, can't bring herself to do more than glance at Helena, who keeps her eyes averted as she's loaded into the SUV.

It's all such a complete mess, Myka thinks, because even now she fights the urge to run to that back door, to pull Helena out, to wrap her in her arms, even as she fantasizes just as vividly about holding her down and screaming at her until she gets answers, until she can develop some kind of understanding.

When Myka drives away later that day, she regrets only that she didn't apologize to Leena for snapping at her the previous night, and that she promised Pete a pizza night that she won't be there to deliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure the whole epiphany-by-masturbation thing is one of those literary tropes that we can only really get away with in fanfiction, but I kind of love it. As always, I'm grateful for any feedback about what you like and what you don't.


	12. How Gabriel Became Thompson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And so H.G. Wells will become a collection of abstract concepts pressed into metal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, update! Apologies for the delay; a chunk of my more recent fic-writing time was swallowed up by [Murmuration](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2797148/chapters/6278945). Some of it has also been swallowed by a smutty one-shot that will be coming your way either shortly before the next chapter of this fic, or shortly after.

Within a week of their return to London, Sophie is up and moving freely around the house. She is not yet well enough to go to the grocers or the baker, so she sends Charles with clear shopping lists.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie says, “They must look at you so strangely.”

Charles shrugs. “I can’t say I’m terribly concerned with what people think, these days.”

Caturanga had taken time to explain the Warehouse to Charles during their transit. Sophie had witnessed it from afar: the response more tired and defeated than angry at the longstanding secrecy.

Crowley appears on their doorstep, hat in hand, the day after they return from Paris. Sophie is still in bed but she hears him, downstairs, speaking to Charles:

"Might I see her?"

"She isn't well, I'm afraid, Mr. Crowley."

"Mightn't you ask her, though? I would so very much like to see her."

The sound of footsteps, retreating to the back of the house, to the servant's quarters where Helena lives. A few minutes later, more footsteps, but still only those of one person.

"She will not see you. I'm terribly sorry."

Sophie can imagine Crowley's pompous but regretful nod as he puts his hat back on and ventures out.

This happens daily for four days, until Sophie hears Charles say, "She's asked me to tell you not to return."

“But—“

“Please, Mr. Crowley.”

She doesn’t hear him come back again.

Sophie is up and moving about the house long before Helena.

Helena leaves her bed only to use, and dispose of, her chamber-pot, and Sophie is grateful that Charles takes it upon himself to inform his sister, kindly but firmly, that Sophie is in no condition to take care of the pot for her if Helena refuses to make the trip out behind the house.

For days, Charles carries full trays of food to Helena’s bedroom, and brings equally full trays back out again.

 “She must eat,” Sophie says.

Charles raises his hands in tired submission. “I’ve tried everything short of plugging her nose to force her mouth open and then wedging a crumpet inside. She won’t do it."

Sophie runs the back of her hand over her forehead, slightly moistened with sweat as she's been cleaning the kitchen. "I'll try," she says.

Charles chuckles despondently and shrugs. "By all means."

Helena's room is dark, the curtains pulled, and it smells more than a little rancid; Helena has not bathed in heaven-knows-how-long, and her pot has been emptied but not cleaned. Sophie walks to the window and pulls the curtain back letting in the flat, grey sheen of London: not so much light as an absence of darkness.

"Close that," says the voice that emerges from beneath greasy, stringy hair, within the disheveled lump on the bed.

Sophie ignores the order. She goes to the edge of Helena's bed and stands there, tall and still. "You must eat something."

The lump on the bed shifts, blankets uncovering a pallid, sallow face.

"Will you let them kill you, too?" Sophie asks.

There is a pause, filled with the sound of a horse-cart clopping down the roadway outdoors, and then:

"I am already dead."

"You are not," Sophie says. She looks down at her hands, the way her father used to look at his own hands; she flexes them into a fist, and then releases. "You are grieving. It feels like death. But it is not death."

"I want to die."

"No, you don't, Helena." Sophie steps forward and turns to sit on the edge of the bedframe, near Helena, but not quite touching.

"Death would hurt less than this does," says Helena's thin voice.

Sophie sighs. "I know, darling. That's why you think you want to die. You don't. You want the pain to stop."

Suddenly there is movement, a flurry of blankets and stringy hair and foul breath and then Helena's sunken face, upright now, saying, "You don't bloody know what I want. You're the _reason_ I feel this way. This is your fault. It's _your fault. You_ were meant to be watching her. You had _one task_ and you _failed it_ and now my girl, _my little girl,_ has paid the price for _your_ inadequacy—"

A lump rises thick in Sophie's throat and she swallows, and swallows, and swallows, and there are tears, hot and pushing at the back of her eyes.

“Why are you still here, in our house?” Helena says, getting louder. “How can you _dare_ to be here, in _my_ home, when it’s _your_ fault that this—“

“ _Helena!”_

Sophie did not hear Charles approach and neither, apparently, did Helena, as they both swivel to face him. Charles is usually affable, soft-spoken, but now he looms in the doorway, his shadow standing larger than he does.

“We don’t know what happened, Helena,” he says more quietly, but just as forcefully, stepping forward. “But whatever did happen, Sophie took one hell of a blow to the head in the process of trying to stop it. I will absolutely _not_ have you hurling insults at the person who, despite a severe head injury, is single-handedly keeping this house from _ruin_ in these exceptionally trying times.”

There is a lump in Sophie’s throat, still, but it is a different one, now. Charles has never been the kind of person to elicit any great emotion the way that Helena, in her fire and mania, cannot help but inspire passion. Sophie looks at Charles now with a tenderness she has not felt for him before.

She turns back to Helena, who is sitting, wild-eyed and open-mouthed and disheveled, on the edge of the bed, in her nightclothes, blanket draped over her shoulder. Her aura is lackluster, present but thin, like faded watercolour painting. Carefully, Sophie bends forward.

“I will allow you to grieve,” Sophie says. “My own sadness threatens to drown me. I can’t imagine what you, as her mother, must be feeling.”

Helena sets her jaw and turns her face away, blinking toward the wall.

“But I won’t let you wither away and die,” Sophie continues.

“I don’t care if I—“

“No, Helena, _I_ don’t care what you say about this. Because you are a woman who invented a grappling gun to save children from burning buildings. You are a woman who taught her daughter that if she thinks a question can’t be answered, she should try thinking of the question differently. You are _not_ a woman who lets evil and madness destroy her. You are a woman who destroys that evil and madness.”

Sophie straightens carefully and slowly makes her way to the door. Charles is standing there, still, though he moves to the side to let her pass. She pauses, there, and meets his eyes, and smiles at him. She can feel Helena’s eyes on her spine. Tentatively, Charles smiles back.

Helena does not leave her room. But she does eat, that evening. Just a few bites, but still—something.

 

/

 

Irene comes to the West End when she can, to help Sophie.

“You should be resting,” she says. “I see how tired you are.”

“I can’t rest,” Sophie replies. “If I sit still, I start to think.”

She helps Sophie with the laundry, and bends to shovel the ashes from the hearths throughout the house because it's difficult for Sophie to crouch and then stand again.

"Can't you walk away from this?" Irene presses, upon her second visit, when she and Sophie pause for tea in the kitchen.

Sophie shakes her head. "I feel I have… a responsibility. To them."

"You feel _guilty_ ," Irene corrects. "Irrationally so. Irresponsibly so, perhaps."

"What would you have me do, Irene?" Sophie's body wilts heavily, like clean laundry in the rain. "Would you have me leave them like this?"

"Yes," Irene says emphatically. "Let the Warehouse tidy up its own messes, for once!"

"This mess had nothing to do with the Warehouse!" Sophie is barely keeping herself from shouting.

"Then what's keeping you here?"

Sophie's eyes flit toward Helena's bedroom door, and then back to Irene.

" _Them_ , Sophie? You're killing yourself over them?" Irene's struggles to keep her voice to a reasonable volume; she leans forward across the table as if proximity could drive her purpose home. "For goodness' sake, let them find a new housekeeper. It needn't be you."

"It does need to be me," Sophie insists.

Irene doesn't mean to slam her teacup so forcefully to the table; the cooling dregs splash onto her hand. "Do you truly mean to tell me that you, in your sixth decade of life, can honestly believe that you're not expendable to people like them?"

"She is certainly not expendable."

Helena Wells: greasy and filthy and wrapped in dirty blankets, on the edge of the kitchen.

(They have become good at sneaking up in doorways, these Wellses, Sophie will think later.)

"I do thank you, Mrs. Frederic, for the help you've been giving to Sophie since she, and I, have been unwell," Miss Wells says. "If you'll give me a few days to straighten out our household accounts, I shall see to it that you are fairly compensated. I could estimate fair payment by prorating Sophie's wages, wouldn't you say?"

The offer feels fork-tongued, to Irene: she is not, and will never be, a servant to the family Wells, just as she will never be a servant to the Warehouse, and thus does not wish to accept their money. But she is not a friend to the family Wells, either, and while the help she's given has been for Sophie, and not for the Wellses, it has benefited them very directly.

This Helena has left her without good options.

Irene narrows her eyes. "I do not expect payment. Perhaps, instead, you might take that money to hire a chambermaid to help my sister with her household chores?"

Her venom lurks not far beneath the surface.

"Perhaps I'll help her myself." Neither does Helena's. She blinks at Irene, impassive, haughty despite the way the parts of her are shiny and sticky with filth.

"Sophie," Helena says, "I've need of a bath. Will it trouble you if I occupy the scullery for a time?"

Only now does Irene's gaze turn back to her sister, whose teacup is frozen halfway to her lips, eyes wide.

"Of-of course not," Sophie sputters. "Do you need any help?"

"No." Helena says the word to Sophie but her eyes hold Irene's face, stern, for a long moment, dark as black marbles and twice as hard. But when she turns to look at Sophie again, they soften. She smiles. "Thank you."

They watch as she closes the scullery door behind her, and then Sophie turns, eyebrow cocked as if to say, "See? I told you so."

Irene shakes her head and stands up. "They're making a fool of you, Sophie, and I will not facilitate it any longer."

She lets herself out the front door.

 

/

 

After the group returns to London, Caturanga waits a fortnight before he pays a visit to the Wells home.

He'd like to go sooner, to see how Miss Wells is faring. And to see Sophie, of course.

But when he hears that Crowley has been rebuffed four days in a row, and that Charles answered the door himself at every visit, he decides that his best course of action is not to intrude, and instead to wait until he hears from one of them. He trusts that Charles, at least, will contact him in case of emergency.

Days turn into weeks of silence, though, and there comes a time when his interest in the well-beings of Sophie and Helena reaches beyond the personal into the professional: Helena is still an agent of the Warehouse, after all, and the other agents are needing to work additional shifts to fill in the gap (much to the dismay of Kipling, in particular).

It was the unannounced appearance of McGivens in Caturanga's workshop that pushed him over the edge.

"She'd be happy to see you, Caturanga," he said. Then, after a pause. "So would Agent Wells."

Caturanga is too old to blush, and therefore he does not blush at the implication of the Caretaker's comment. Still, he find himself, a day later, on the doorstep of Sophie's home, hat in hand, and is relieved that it is she who opens the door.

"Rajinder," she says, and the breadth and warmth of her smile makes something expand in his chest, press outward against his ribcage, and he can't help but smile back.

"Sophie," he says, with a bow of the head.

"You must be here to see Helena," she says, as she takes his hat and coat.

"Indeed. But not exclusively." He smiles, and tilts his head. "How have you been?"

The softness in her eyes floods him, again, with affection. "Recovering. And you?"

"Oh, barely keeping up, as usual. Some things never change at Warehouse 12."

Sophie laughs now, lightly, and says, "Indeed, some things never do."

He waits in the drawing room while she fetches Wells from her quarters off the kitchen. The sight of her, when she comes in the door, fills him with conflict. She looks herself, in her ridiculous get-up of trousers and waistcoat, and yet not herself, with her dull, sunken eyes and shallow complexion.

"Agent Wells," he says, rising to his feet. "How are you, my dear?"

When she forces an upward curl to her lips he feels he can see ever part of it: the conscious decision to smile, the robotic signals sent from her brain to the muscles in her face, compelling it to move.

"I won't lie to you, Caturanga. But thank you for asking. How bodes the Warehouse in my absence?"

"That, as it happens, is precisely the reason for my visit." He gestures to the divan opposite his own chair. "May we?"

They converse, for a time, about Wells's future with Warehouse 12. Caturanga watches Helena's energy dwindle, like a mechanical wind-up toy losing the tension of its springs.

"I want to come back," she says. "I want so desperately to come back but I can't… it's impossible to imagine…"

She leans forward against her knees and presses her fingertips into her eyes.

"We might have artifacts that could help," he says, almost as an afterthought. "There are artifacts for nearly everything. You know that."

Wells stiffens, and then slowly lifts herself upright. "You're right," she says. Her voice is detached, as though it comes from another person's body, and Caturanga has the foreboding sense that she's left the room, that she's gone somewhere else entirely.

Then her eyes snap back to his. "I shall return tomorrow," she says. "I shall be back on duty tomorrow."

Caturanga compels a smile. "Very good," he says.

Something in him, an instinct, wants to tell her not to come. To rest, to take her time, perhaps to find a temporary position elsewhere, if she's so inclined. But he can't very well do that, after the conversation they've just had, can he?

He has only a few moments with Sophie before he must excuse himself for his trip home. As she hands him his hat and coat, he says, "I wonder if you might like to join me for a walk, tomorrow. As we used to do."

'Used to,' he thinks sardonically. Was it only two months earlier that things were normal? That he and Sophie would take walks with young Christina in the park? That Agent Wells was the most valuable Agent in recent Warehouse history? Was it really so recent?

"I would like that," Sophie says, and Caturanga's entire body floods with relief.

The following day, Helena strides into his office as though she's never left it. "I've only one request," she says, in lieu of "Hello."

Caturanga looks up from where he's adjusting the settings on a faulty Tesla. "Yes?"

"I would prefer not to be partnered with Agent Crowley unless absolutely necessary."

It's a puerile demand, Caturanga thinks, of the type that is the only significant downside of counting a woman among the core Warehouse staff. But he needs both Wells and Crowley, they are both good agents, so he says, "I'll do my best."

"I like Wolcott," she says as an afterthought while she hangs her coat, "and Crowley is fond of Kipling. Surely we could simply trade our default partners?"

Caturanga has already turned his attention back to what appears to be a faulty resistor. It's a possibility, certainly, but ultimately these decisions depend upon the case, and who is best suited to take it.

That evening, Caturanga takes a Hansom to meet Sophie and they walk together to Regent's Park. They laugh together, they discuss history and politics and literature and fashion, and for a time, just for an hour, Caturanga is able to almost forget the horrors of the previous month, the suffering that it has wrought upon so many people.

In the gloaming, they stand outside the rear entrance to the house, and Caturanga feels happier than he's felt in weeks, and it emboldens him. He steps closer to her, takes both of her hands in his, and slowly, very slowly, that she might have plenty of time to back away, he brings his lips to hers.

Those hands are warm. Her fingers tangle between his, and her mouth is soft and unresisting.

When he steps back he watches the shifting focus of her eyes. She's reading him.

"You've the most beautiful colour right now," she says, with a smile, as she brushes her fingers along his cheek. He isn't surprised—he feels weightless and giddy as a schoolboy.

Three days later, they go, again, on a walk through Regents Park. In his pocket he carries a small box, and in that box is a necklace bequeathed to him by his mother: a golden chain with a pendant of gold-encrusted ruby and ivory, which she brought with her from India.

Beneath a century oak a short distance from the path, Sophie's eyebrows furrow as Caturanga lowers himself to one knee. He knows she has a husband, he says, who was a good man, and whose resting soul he would never wish to offend. But if we learn but one thing from recent tragedies, should it not be that life is too ephemeral to deprive oneself of that which brings happiness?

"Nothing would make me happier," he says, "than for you to take this aging, lifelong bachelor kneeling before you, and let him become the husband who will seek to make you happy for the rest of our lives."

She wears the necklace under her collar ('It wouldn't do to attract unwanted attention,' she says, but he sees her pat at it, periodically, through the cloth of her dress-front, and the bit of exposed chain glints against her neck. Caturanga thinks that if he had known it would feel this wonderful to be affianced, he might have done it years ago—and how terrible would that have been, because it would have had to be to somebody else, somebody who is not Sophie, whose hand folds into his, and who stands closer, now, and smiles at him periodically with an exuberance that matches his own.

 

/

 

The logging system of Warehouse 12 relies upon professional responsibility and the honour system for tracking the uses of or contacts with of stored artifacts.

Four days after H.G. Wells's return to the Warehouse, contact is made with an artifact stored in Khan-39.

The artifact is a kettle, known mostly for its ability to create ferrets, and occasionally, when it does not create ferrets, to manifest wishes.

Held in human hands, the kettle creates one ferret, which those human hands scramble to kill before it escapes.

Then it creates another ferret, which meets the same fate.

 _Try thinking of the question differently_.

And then, uncharacteristically and to the surprise of the person holding it, it does _not_ create a ferret.

She waits for something to appear. For some revelation to appear.

Until it does appear, not as a vision but as knowledge, as a seed planted in the back of the mind.

The kettle goes back to the shelf.

The bodies of two dead ferrets end up in a roadside dustbin in Soho.

 

* * *

 

 

Myka flies to D.C., first, to hand over her badge and return her service weapon and pick up the rest of her stuff that’s been packed up for her in a storage locker in Arlington. There’s not that much of it, really; she’d purged a lot of things when she moved from Denver, and she hadn’t been in D.C. long enough to collect much more of it.

She’s kicking herself for letting the Service buy back her Taurus after she was transferred to the Warehouse. They gave her a good rate—10% over blue book—but now she’s looking at these boxes with no way to move them, with a rental car parked outside that would charge insane one-way fees if she drove it all the way to Colorado and leave her without a car once she got there, anyway.

 _Looks like you need to buy a car, Slim_ , she hears in the back of her mind: the voice of reason and good ideas has always belonged to Sam. But then, she hears, _Buy it here, Mykes, where you can get something used that won’t have been through any Colorado winters. And make it fun. New life, new you, am I right?_

And that’s really not the voice that her conscience wants to hear right now.

But she does buy a car, that same day, which is the closest thing to a real impulse-purchase she’s ever made (though she does spend several hours cross-referencing used car postings online beforehand). It’s a low-mileage 2007 Impreza hatchback, all-wheel-drive for those Colorado winters, with roof brackets where she could attach racks for her skis. Certified pre-owned from a Subaru dealership, of course, because there’s only so much impulse she can handle.

It’s evening by the time she’s done loading the boxes from the locker into her new car. There isn’t really anyone to see while she’s in D.C.—nobody she’d feel comfortable calling up after two years to ask for a couch or a guest room. And if she’s going to stay in a hotel anyway, she might as well have it be a hotel somewhere between here and Colorado.

So she starts to drive, thinking that if nothing else, she should be able to get out of Virginia before the exhaustion catches up with her.

 

/

 

It lives in aisle Emmett-3 in a small, inauspicious, worn velvet case, like a ring box. Beside the box sits a matte-black sphere. With nobody else around, Irene takes a moment to pause: she opens the case, looks at the shiny coin with the coarse inscription of the head with two faces. With one gloved hand, she flips it: the Janus coin is, ironically, identical on the front and back.

It’s hardly the largest irony of the coin’s impending use. Far greater is, perhaps, the fact that Helena Wells’s past and present have been divided and reconnected more times, already, than most people will ever experience: by her time in Bethlem, by the death of Christina, by her time machine, by the bronze. Irene wonders whether this upcoming division, despite being more radical than any of the others, might in fact be more humane. In all of these other divisions, Helena had been left with the demand and the need to knit together the disparate pieces of herself, to push and bend and rotate them like the bits of a poorly-designed tangram kit that, no matter how carefully aligned, will never make a square.

Helena had asked for the Janus Coin a century ago. They called it inhumane, at the time, compared to the bronze, because they still thought then that bronzing rendered a person unconscious, despite what so many generations of women with the Sight had said.

(When Sophie became more intricately involved with the Warehouse, she had told Irene that she visited the Bronze Sector once and would never go again.

 _The auras_ , she had said. _They are manic, and shattered, and explosive and full of holes, as though a deep, visceral, gut-rending scream were made visual, or the kind of laughter so powerful it inhibits breath but that refuses to stop until it becomes fear, until humour merges with terror and desperation, because the laughing, the giddiness and the happiness is the very thing you want to stop. It is the image of the sensation that drives people to swallow pure acid. It’s abhorrent, Irene, no matter what these people may have done._

Nobody listened to Sophie.

When Irene makes people listen to her, now, she remembers Sophie, and all the words that nobody ever respected or acknowledged—not even Caturanga.)

A new Helena will grow from the body of the old. And Helena’s memories will be just that, her memories, stored on the coin, dormant when not active. There will be no consciousness to linger in darkness on the coin because memories and consciousness are not the same thing: memories, triggered and assembled, create consciousness, but unassembled, imbued into the metal of a coin, they are naught but what they are: disassembled ideas, abstract concepts.

And so H.G. Wells will become a collection of abstract concepts pressed into metal.

Irene sighs, closes the box, and tucks it into her handbag. She puts the sphere in her handbag, too. On her way back out to the car, she stops in the office. Leena is there, scrolling slowly through the security feeds. Artie is, at Leena’s insistence, sleeping in one of the extra rooms at the B&B, because he’s still on pain meds and any kind of loopiness is dangerous in the Warehouse. Claudia, Irene imagines, is with Pete, doing something to wrap their heads around the reality of Myka’s departure. So Leena, more loyal to the Warehouse than she should probably be, is slumped against the desk, scrolling slowly through the security feeds. 

“I’ve removed an item and bypassed the log,” Irene says, and Leena jumps up and wheels to look at her, clutching her chest.

“You scared me,” she says.

“There is no need for anyone to know what I’ve taken,” Irene continues, unperturbed. “Should anyone notice its disappearance, they will be routed back to me.”

Leena nods slowly. “Uh, okay.” Her eyes track down to Irene’s handbag, and then her gaze narrows. “I don’t like the feel of that thing, whatever it is,” she says. “I don’t even have a word for that color.”

“It is often better not to know,” Irene says.

Leena swallows, and nods.

Irene tips her head and makes to leave when Leena says, “Mrs. Frederic.”

Irene turns. “Yes?”

“It’s for her, isn’t it?” she asks.

Irene ponders for a moment, and then tips her head in agreement.

“So she isn’t going back into the bronze.”

“She is not.”

 Leena nods slowly and bites her lip. "I really think that's for the best."

At that, Irene smiles. "I know you do," she says.

 

/

 

Myka's childhood home is filled with memories of secrets.

Her parents greet her together, when she arrives; this is the "new normal" – and she can hear those quotation marks when she thinks that phrase—that they've cultivated since she and her father agreed to try to build some semblance of a healthy father-daughter relationship over a year ago, now.

Her father takes her suitcase, her mother takes her coat. They usher her into the kitchen

“Are you hungry? Your mother’s been cooking—“

“I have! There was chicken for dinner, and I made a batch of your favorite peanut butter squares—“

“And if you want your usual rabbit food there’s stuff to make salad—“

“Or we could order a pizza, if you’d like?”

They'd thought she had an eating disorder when she was in high school. Her mother finally explained that at her last visit, for Thanksgiving, when they'd wound up in a conversation about how Myka's parents really had no idea what she preferred in a holiday meal.

Myka probably _had_ had an eating disorder, in retrospect, but not the kind her parents think she did. She ate so little in front of them when she was a teenager because she'd been corrected so many times in her eating behavior—sit straighter, feet together, don't cross your legs, your knife and fork are in the wrong hands, don't chew like that you're not a cow, you're not chewing enough, your portions are too big, swallow your food before you drink your water, don’t combine your foods on your fork, you should have butter on your potato, why are you salting your broccoli?—that, after awhile, she stopped eating in front of them, as best she could. She got up early, before anyone else, and ate breakfast in the dark, her father stumbling out of his room just in time to take her to early fencing practice or to school. She ate lunch at school, picked at her dinners at home, and made up the difference in meal replacement bars stashed in the back of the top shelf in her closet.

(She came to hate sweets not out of some manic distaste for sugar, but because every candy bar or baked pastry reminds her somehow of the candy coating on those meal-bars she ate every day for the five years that led up to college.

She likes Twizzlers because they're so completely processed and synthetic and unnatural in every respect that they can't even remind her of those bars.)

Myka sits now at the kitchen table. Her mother is beside her, her father opposite, and he's leaning forward, onto his elbow, like a keen student at the front of the class eager to prove to her how much he's changed. Her mother looks anxiously between them, back and forth. And Myka? Myka just wraps her hands around her water glass, lifts it, sips from it. She shrugs. She says, "I'm not really hungry, but thanks."

In her bedroom, Myka pulls a carton of Luna bars from the front pocket of her suitcase. She pulls one out and immediately tucks the box into the empty top drawer of the dresser.

Stepping into her childhood bedroom is stepping into a full tornado of memories: the five-hundred-mile-per-hour winds, but also the eye. The room is tidy. She always kept it tidy because that kept her parents out, and feeling-relatively-confident-that-her-parents-would-stay-out was about as close as things ever got to feeling-okay in the world of young Myka.

Which is to say, not very close.

She can see evenly-spaced lines in the wall-to-wall carpet: somebody has quite meticulously vacuumed in here recently.

Myka sits, now, on the edge of her childhood twin bed, eating her snack, and looks at the closed door, and is viscerally transposed into the person of her fifteen-year-old self, who could only feel relief at the closed door if she also embraced the fear that the door could, at any point, be opened: that she could be hauled out to account, loudly, for an error in sorting books or a minor discrepancy in the cash register or unsatisfactory work done in washing the dishes.

She crumples the empty Luna bar wrapper in her hand and impulsively tucks it into her suitcase pocket, like she used tuck powerbar wrappers into her backpack to throw away when she got to school so her parents wouldn't find them in her trash can.

She looks at the stereo in this room, at the short stack of CDs of classical music and American Songbook standards and remembers the time she was 13 and borrowed her fencing coach's brand new copy of _Jagged Little Pill_ only to watch that closed bedroom door slam open, her father stalk in and flip open the CD player without stopping it (to this day, when Myka hears "All I Really Want," her brain cuts the word 'deliverance'—second verse, third line—with a shrill, high-pitched scratching sound; she is always a little surprised to hear the song continue when she expects it to stop) and snap the disk in two.

In her childhood bedroom, Myka feels smaller than she's felt in a decade, and, perversely, more frightened than she ever felt chasing an artifact or protecting a senator.

More frightened than she felt when H.G. Wells pressed a gun to her forehead.

She finds herself wishing for her gun to hide in the nightstand. And then, right away, realizes how good it is that she _doesn't_ have a gun anymore, because irrationally frightened people should not have weapons.

She's crouching over her suitcase, digging out some pyjamas, when the door knock happens. Myka leaps to her feet, swallows down the urge to shuffle her suitcase from its spot in the center of the floor to a tidier location by the wall, but can't keep herself from tugging on her clothes to straighten them before saying, "Come in."

Her father walks in with a plate and a mug.

"I thought you might want this if you got hungry later," he says. "And the tea is herbal if you want to drink it while it's hot. It won't keep you up."

He looks adrift in the middle of the floor. Myka sees his eyes dart down to her suitcase, but he swallows and says nothing as he looks back to her eyes.

"Uh, thanks," she says, palming the back of her neck. The plate has two of her mother's peanut butter squares—she puts that on the nightstand. The tea is peppermint; she takes a sip.

They stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, Myka sipping her tea, her father wringing his hands.

It's been like this. Reconciling is one thing; overcoming twenty-eight years of history is quite another.

"I just want you to know," her father says, finally, "that I'm really sorry about your job."

"Dad," Myka sighs.

"No, Myka, I mean it. I'm sorry about your job, but I'm happy that this is where you decided to come."

She could clarify things for him. Say: I couldn't really think of where else to go to start over. Or: it wasn't a decision, it was more of a default. But his eyes are earnest. He's got crow's feet from laughing with his customers (a pillar of the community, Warren Bering has always been) and lines between his eyebrows from scowling at Myka. She feels, not for the first time, an all-encompassing sense of pathos directed toward him.

She sighs. "Thanks."

He smiles tightly, and nods. "Sleep well," he says. He closes the door behind him when he leaves.

Myka settles back onto the bed and puts the tea on the nightstand. She pushes her fingers through her hair and thinks about how she will definitely need to find an apartment.

 

/

 

Jane Lattimer comes up with Emily Lake's name: Emily because it sounds, vaguely, like Helena, with three syllables and the weight of E and L and M and N sounds; Lake, because a lake, like a well, is a water source.

Irene has to use her Secret Service connections with the US Marshals to arrange for all the necessary identification and licensure to supply to Ms. Lake. Irene does not meet Emily, though Irene is in the building, just down the hallway, when she is… created.

She shudders at the grating sound of that American accent in Helena's voice.

(The dissociation of body from will can never, will never, sit right with her. Irene's maternal lineage, the world's only known lineage to carry the Sight—a heterozygous dominant genetic trait passable only from a mother to some of her daughters—has been protected for centuries by its affiliation with the Warehouse. But her father had, on rare occasions, told stories of life in England before and after Somerset's case, which ended slavery: _Things didn't get better for years after that trial, in terms of money, or living, and God knows I won't live long enough to see them come to be anything like perfect, but at least I can look at my own hands now and know they ain't nobody's but mine_ , he said.)

In her hand, she holds the black sphere. It is the Impression Projector: another strange invention of Farnsworth's, paired specifically to read the bizarre, subatomic components that store such massive quantities of complex information on the simple metal disk of the Janus Coin.

She resents standing here, in this corridor, waiting to be acknowledged or released.

"Mrs. Frederic."

She did not hear him approach, but she is not surprised. "Adwin," she says, turning.

Adwin Kosan wears a permanent Mona Lisa smile: too broad to be neutral, but not broad enough to show engagement or pleasure; he lives, by appearances, on the permanent edge of happiness.

He holds out his hand. "Thank you for bringing the Projector," he says.

The ball in her hand is cold, and surprisingly light for its size. Irene's middle finger brushes the indentation where the coin can be inserted.

"What will you do with it?" Irene asks.

Adwin shrugs. "Store it with the coin until we have need for her."

The blasé detachment of his statement pushes back on Irene’s shoulders and pushes up beneath her chin. “And what, might I ask, will qualify as ‘need’?”

The laugh that erupts from Kosan’s belly is thick and deep, but not full of humour. “Cases relevant to Warehouse 12,” he says, as though it should be obvious. “And cases wherein her astounding knowledge of the physics of artifact operation might prove useful.”

“And I suppose you will determine when the need is sufficient for her to be—“ Irene arches an eyebrow— “ _used_ , then?”

Adwin glances down and shakes his head, his air becoming condescending in a way that bristles Irene endlessly. “In consultation with the other regents, yes. Of course, you are also welcome to petition for access to her if you think it might benefit your agents.”

Because that’s what Helena Wells has become, Irene thinks. Something that might, or might not, benefit the Warehouse’s agents.

“Mr. Kosan,” Irene says. “I wish to formally lodge my vehement disagreement with the regents’ decision regarding the sentence of H. G. Wells.”

Kosan shakes his head, again, both bemused and a little annoyed. “Come now, Mrs. Frederic! We followed her request not to be bronzed. She had _asked_ for the Janus coin before, prior to her bronzing, so she was clearly amenable to the idea, at least up to a point. Even Jane agreed to this decision.”

Irene has tremendous respect for Jane Lattimer; she has tremendous respect for Adwin Kosan, as well, most of the time.

But Jane does not have Irene’s father’s hands. And Jane did not know Helena when Helena asked for the Janus Coin; she did not know the process that went into the decision not to use it. But Irene does.

“It’s unconscionable,” she says.

“Moreso than bronzing?”

“One merely imprisons. The other both imprisons and enslaves.”

The bemused smile falls from Kosan’s face. He arches an eyebrow at her. “Your objection is duly noted, Mrs. Frederic.”

He holds his hand out, open, for the Impression Projector. Irene presses it to his palm, and then she watches him walk away, back in the direction of H.G. Wells’ Americanized voice.

 

/

 

It’s ironic and fitting, Myka thinks, that this is the first time she’s ever had trouble with the Colorado altitude.

All things considered, it’s not that bad, in the grand measure of altitude adjustment issues. She’s parched, emptying her liter-sized Nalgene bottle twice before lunch, and she’s got a slight headache that Advil doesn’t help. She’s tired, too. Myka has never liked to nap: it eats into her usable daylight hours. But on her first full day in town, she hits 3 pm and can barely keep her eyes open, so she sleeps until 4 and even then finds herself ready for bed again by 8:30.

Tracy’s name pops up on her caller ID shortly after lunch. Myka hits “ignore” and follows it with a text: _You guys do something to the air while I was gone? It’s like I’ve never been a mile up before! Love you but I’ll call when the headache goes away._

Her second day, she oversleeps but she gets through without a nap. In the late morning she drives to Palmer Park and takes a walk, sticking to the shorter, lower trails near the parking lot and craning her neck to look up at the not-so-distant snow-capped peaks.

Then, in the afternoon, she goes to see her parents in the bookshop.

“Got anything that needs shelving?” she asks, instead of greeting.

Her father has his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and his head tilted back so he can look at the arcane computer screen behind the desk. He turns to her and smiles; the smile is more genuine than she’s seen from him since that day they parted ways after the Poe case.

“Not ‘till the shipment comes in on Thursday,” he says, “but maybe you can help me with this highfalutin’ new computer system that Jolene convinced me to try out.”

Jolene runs the hardware store next door, and Myka has known her all her life.

Myka laughs. “Sure.”

 

/

 

Jane Lattimer drives a perplexed Emily Lake to Cheyenne, where an apartment, a teaching position, and all the trappings of a full life have been laid out for her.

“Are you doing all right, Emily?” she asks, one hand firmly gripping the wheel.

Emily laughs once, quietly, and it’s nothing like H.G. Wells’s laugh. It’s light, and high, even now when it’s clipped and nervous.

“I guess so,” Emily says. “It’s strange to be driving to a city where you say I have a home, but I don’t remember it.”

“You’ll begin to remember when we get there,” Jane says. She glances over at Emily. “I’m going to help you.”

When they arrive at the apartment, Jane waits while Emily works through the keys in her purse until she finds the one that fits. Inside the apartment, Jane pauses by the entryway while Emily takes a slow lap of the place, pausing to look at the pictures on the wall, the pattern of the sofa.

“Is this even my taste?” she says. “I can’t quite tell.”

This is Jane’s cue to step forward. “Have a seat, Emily. I have something that can help you.”

Emily looks at her, biting her lip in a very un-H.G. Wells-kind of way, then nods, nervously. She pulls her skirt into place as she sits on the sofa.

Jane sits opposite her and fishes a pair of old spectacles from her pocket. Kappas’ spectacles—but Emily doesn’t need to know this. “Could you put these on?”

“I don’t _feel_ like I need glasses,” Emily says, turning them in her hands but she shrugs, almost passively, and puts them on. Almost instantly, her face goes slack, her shoulders slump, and she stares forward, as though in a trance.

Jane leans forward and looks into those dark eyes, through Kappas’ lenses. “Your name is Emily Hannah Lake, born March 30th, 1974. You just moved to Cheyenne. Before this, you lived in Omaha and taught at a high school there. You’re from Omaha. This is your first time living anywhere else. You’ve always been a little bit introverted, you don’t make friends easily, but when you wake up that’s going to change…”

The story lasts for fifteen minutes and covers the big things: the make and model of her car parked outside (2004 Honda Civic). Why she doesn’t have any family (her parents died when she was young; she grew up in the foster system). Her travel history (she has never travelled out of the country; she doesn’t have a passport). Her life dreams (she has only ever wanted to be a teacher, and she’s good at it). And Jane satisfies a request: she tells Emily Lake that she loves literature. Her favorite author (and she’s going off-script, but Jane can’t quite resist) is H.G. Wells.

Then she asks Emily to stand up, and Emily does. They move slowly, carefully through the apartment, opening all the drawers, all the closets, all the doors. Through Kappas’ lenses, Emily learns where everything is in her apartment, until Jane leads her back to the sofa and asks her to sit down.

The last thing Jane says before she takes the glasses off is: “When I leave this room and close the door behind me, you will forget me, you will forget Adwin Kosan, you will forget this supposed accident and everything that followed from it.”

Carefully, Jane pulls the glasses from Emily’s face, and Emily continues to stare, unresponsive. But when Jane moves to stand up, Emily’s face does follow her, slack-jawed, eyes vacant. Jane pockets the glasses, then walks to the door and slips on her shoes. She closes the door carefully behind her and pauses there, pressing her ear to the wood. She hears Emily moving around, her heels clicking against the tile floors, the sound indicating the even and solid stride of a woman moving with purpose, not wandering aimlessly.

The following day, Jane, with a Department of Education badge, walks through Lincoln High School until she finds Emily Lake’s classroom. Through the door, she spies Emily leaning against her desk, smiling and nodding at something a student is saying.

Jane sighs.

The job is done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you will be disappointed by the lack of Bering/Wells action in this chapter. It's all necessary context, though, to set up the next chapter, which is already about half written, in which both of them will be doing some grappling with their feelings.
> 
> Also, a few disclaimers/invitations for comment: I am a white person trying to write complex POC characters, and a person with wonderful and supportive parents trying to write about one character's experience with an abusive parent, and a cis woman who has attempted to write a complex trans character (who hasn't appeared in several chapters, but we'll see her again down the line), and a relatively young person (fun fact: I graduated high school the same year as Myka) who is attempting to write older characters well. If you have more experience than I do in any of these areas and have comments on how I can improve my handling of them, I will shower you with gratitude for your thoughts.


	13. The Sea Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily Lake loves apples.
> 
> She always has, for as long as she can remember. McIntosh, Gala, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, even Red Delicious, it doesn’t matter.
> 
> She’s never really understood why other people eat junk food to cheer themselves up when they feel badly.
> 
> Emily will choose a crisp, slightly chilled, delicious apple every time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly but surely. The next chapter should come sooner as it's already half written.
> 
> The W12 half of this chapter contains reference to some behavior that toes the line between the consensual inflicting of pain and self-harm-by-proxy. It's a small part of the chapter and it's handled with a pretty light touch.
> 
> On the plus side, the W13 half features an OKCupid profile and the introduction of one Dickens the cat.

Sophie is not a church-bound woman but Irene is, so it's Irene's pastor who conducts the ceremony.

"I should be asking for your conversion, Mr. Caturanga," he says, "but for a couple such as yourselves, with no children on the way, I am happy enough to solemnify your shared happiness."

Sophie moves into Caturanga's flat, which is near enough to Helena and Charles's that she can walk there daily for work. Charles has been working with magazine editors and book publishers to serialize, and then publish, the stories that he and Helena wrote together, as well as the ones she wrote herself, all under H.G. Wells's name. 

Rajinder, following Sophie's urging, sits down with Helena to fully inform Charles about the work of the Warehouse. They bring him there, to its vast stacks and vaults.

He takes the announcement well, all things considered, Sophie thinks. Which is to say: he storms off and then stumbles home late, smelling of whiskey—or so Helena told her. He spends the following day in recovery and several days after that ignoring both Helena and her in silent reprimand. But by the end of the week he comes home from a publisher's meeting, waltzes into the kitchen and says to Sophie, "What's for supper tonight, hmm?"

And that's that.

Rajinder is a kind and gracious husband, sometimes to the point of excess: he is so effusive in his love of her cooking that she can't help but feel—in her weaker moments, anyway—that he's putting on a show for her. She is touched by the effort, regardless. Their love of literature is a wonderful thing to share: they sit by the hearth in the evenings and read, sometimes each in their own book, or sometimes one reading to the other. Rajinder expresses shock when he learns that Sophie has read very little of the H.G. Wells literature—a few of the short stories, no more.

“Those two imbue most of my working hours,” she says, “so I’ve chosen to largely keep them out of my leisure hours.”

“Well, I can certainly understand that,” Rajinder says, “But they’re quite wonderful stories, for what it’s worth.”

And while Sophie and Rajinder both are beyond the period of their lives wherein more carnal desires hold significant sway over their nights, Sophie is surprised at the contentment she finds in the intimacy of their shared bed—simply in his warm, solid presence at night when she falls asleep, and still there in the morning when she awakens.

She doesn’t see Helena very much anymore. She is usually gone by the time Sophie arrives in the morning. Sometimes they cross paths in the evening, before Sophie leaves to go home. Helena greets her with a too-wide smile and too-tight embrace, every time, and proceeds to stick her fingers in whatever Sophie is cooking. She is, on those occasions, even more effusive than Rajinder in her celebration of the food.

Sophie finds she abhors—she very nearly _hates_ —to cross paths with Helena anymore.

Sophie understood Helena when Helena was broken and grieving and grey. She understands grief and misery and, above all, guilt.

But Helena is not that, any longer. The way Helena is, her colors, they remind Sophie of Helena from years earlier, strapped to a guerney in a dismal, prison-like hospital, glaring a red that was both bright as fire and sharp as a spear or a needle. If that red had been fire, though, this thick, oozing red is the oil that burns, but that has not yet been lit: the sickness of potential.

“I’m worried about her,” Sophie says to Rajinder.

He chuckles. “You always worry about her, and yet somehow, she’s always fine.”

Sophie shakes her head. “Not this time. I’m quite sure of it. Not this time.”

 

/

 

Wolly never thought he’d find himself feeling sorry for Crowley, but he feels sorry for Crowley.

Helena treats him like magnet of the same pole: when Crowley walks into a room, Helena walks out, as though pushed by an invisible force. And if she walks into a room and he’s there, she turns on her heel and walks out again.

Crowley is patient, at first; he asks Wolcott—H.G.’s new regular partner—for updates regarding her health and wellbeing, and sometimes asks him to relay messages. (Wolly hasn’t the heart to tell him that he stopped trying to relay messages weeks earlier, because the mere mention of Crowley’s name triggers that same polarized reaction in H.G.) But as time passes Crowley becomes less patient, and more disgruntled: Wolcott is standing in the stacks, inventory clipboard in hand, when out of nowhere he winds up pinned against the shelving, his jaw cracked against the metal standard, hands pinned behind his back.

“Are you enjoying her company, then, boy?” Crowley hisses into his ear. “She’s good, isn’t she? A little thin and knobbly for my taste, objectively speaking, but she’s such a minx with that tongue that a wise man wouldn’t complain.”

The pressure on his chest, against the metal, pushes the air from his lungs. “Vincent—“

“What’s that, lad?” He chuckles darkly and pushes harder. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”

Wolly weighs his options. Crowley is physically fit but he’s older; Wolly could certainly overpower him, but he doesn’t want to injure the man and risk bring down the wrath of Caturanga or—more worrisome—Kipling.

“My mother didn’t raise me to strike my elders,” Wolly manages to grit out.

“Your elder, indeed!” Crowley growls, and Wolly feels his hands tighten in the fabric of his jacket. “Because if I’m a man, then what are you but a schoolboy who’s dipping his nib in the company ink—”

The last word draws out with a gasp as the pressure disappears from Wolly’s back. Wolly pulls away from the shelf, rubbing his surely-bruised chest, to turn around and find Crowley on the ground on his chest, H.G.  pinning his wrist to his back under her knee, and gripping the base of his neck.

“A gentleman doesn’t ask, Vincent, and a lady doesn’t tell,” she says, smoothly, as though she were a teacher reciting catechism to a student. “But you wouldn’t know much about being a gentleman, would you?”

“A bit more than you’d know about being a lady, I'd say,” Crowley barks back.

Wolly doesn’t see H.G. move but she must, because he sees Crowley wince as though in new pain for a flash of a second before H.G. rises to her feet.

“Come, Wolly,” she says, as Crowley slowly begins to sit up. She picks up a folder that she had, apparently, set down on a shelf when she arrived in the aisle, and gestures vaguely with it. “We’ve a curiosity to investigate.”

 They end up on the evening train to Oxford to investigate a series of individuals hospitalized with mysteriously burned feet. It’s late, by the time they arrive, so they take their rooms at a hotel and venture to a corner pub for dinner.

Wolly takes a breath and says: “If you don’t mind my asking – you let him believe, earlier, that you and I were… you know.”

H.G. swallows her bite and quirks her lips at him. “What are you asking? That wasn’t a question.”

Wolly shrugs awkwardly and looks down at his pot pie. “Well, you know.”

“Do I, now, dear Wolly?”

She is hellbent on mortifying him, he’s quite sure of it.

But now she smiles and takes a sip of from her glass, and then shrugs. “It benefits you, in a way, for him to think that, doesn’t it?”

Wolcott’s eyes dart nervously around the pub, and he ducks his head down to his dinner. “I suppose,” he mutters.

H.G. shrugs. “And it’s not of his affairs, is it?”

Wolly lifts his head and tips it to one side, acquiescent. “I suppose not. Although…”

H.G’s eyebrows raise, her bemused smile growing into a grin. “Although?”

Wolly sighs. “The bugger does care about you, you know.”

 And now the smile begins to fade. H.G. takes a bite of her Salisbury steak, and then another. “He’s a married man,” she says, eventually. “It was wrong of me to take up with him, and I was punished for my transgression.”

“Your transgression?” Wolly asks. “But you both—and _he_ was the one who was married.”

“Oh, Wolly,” H.G. sighs. “You’re a wonderful man, and I consider it a privilege to call you a friend and a colleague, so please don’t take offence when I say: watch, and pay attention, and you will come to see how frequently women are held responsible for the errors and misbehaviors of men.”

Wolly opens his mouth to respond but claps it shut again when H.G.’s hand snaps across the table and tightens around his forearm. “Look, behind you,” she says, breathlessly.

Wolcott nods and turns in his chair, glancing around in a way that, to any observer, would appear aimless, as though he might be looking for a friend who might be joining them. He sees nothing out of the ordinary: men drinking ales and eating dinner.

He turns back to H.G. and shrugs.

“Right behind you,” she says. “The next table. It’s Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.”

“Who’s that?” Wolly asks.

“You might know him as Lewis Carroll?”

Wolly feels his eyes widen, and H.G. nods in response.

“Have you seen his mirror, back at the Warehouse?” Wolly asks. “One of the more frightening things we’ve got stored over there.”

H.G. nods. “I’m given to understand that he’s something of a frightening character.”

“How so?”

She leans across the table. “Something of a pervert. So say some of the men I know who’ve kept his company, anyway.”

Wolly feels his heart drop. What a choice of words, he thinks; what an unnecessary choice of words, and coming from H.G., of all people.

“No, no,” H.G. says, squeezing his arm again. “Not like that.”

“Like what, then?” Wolly sighs.

H.G. shakes her head. “After we leave,” she says. “I’ll explain after we leave.”

Twenty minutes later, they step into the night. They walk a block, and then another, and then suddenly H.G. grabs Wolly by the sleeve and ducks into the small space between two buildings.

“You’re no more a pervert for enjoying the company of men than I am for, on occasion, enjoying the company of women,” Helena says.

Wolly’s jaw drops open but H.G. raises her hand to silence him before he can say a word.

“Don’t pretend to be surprised. I know Charles has told you about me.”

Wolly dutifully closes his mouth. It’s true, after all.

“Dodgson has an… uncomfortable fondness for _children_ , Wolly. A fondness so strong that it trapped that girl in a mirror.  _That_ is perversion.”

The artifact, as it turns out, is a paving stone in the walkway around the green at Brasenose College, which was imbued with the rage of a defeated candidate for fellow, infuriated that he had not earned the privilege of walking across the grass. Any time a fellow stepped on the stone, his shoes would catch fire.

The stone makes the trip back to London safely wrapped in Wolly’s travel trunk. As the countryside clicks by, Wolly leans over and taps H.G. on the shoulder. She has been staring out the window and jumps, like a frightened animal, at the touch.

“Crowley is a fool,” he says, “And I hope that you and I may share many years of partnership in the name of the greater good.”

H.G. smiles. “Crowley _is_ a fool. And, likewise.” 

 

/

 

Sophie is at the house when Helena arrives from the station. She walks in and carries her suitcase to her bedroom without greeting. Sophie stops her, physically, when she comes back out of the bedroom and turns back toward the front door, because Sophie could see even without the Sight that Helena is having one of her more troubling days. There is a happiness there—the mauve of contentment—but also the red of rage, and that dark, deep blackness that Sophie never knows how to name, but only how to see.

“I’ve made roast chicken,” Sophie says. “Sit.”

Helena blinks at her for a long moment, and then smiles, haltingly, as though she has made a decision to do it. “Certainly,” she says, and steps to the worn kitchen table. “Thank you.”

But Helena is all but silent while she eats, and at the end of the meal, she stands, her colors unchanged. “Thank you, Sophie, it was delicious,” she says, and then ventures toward the door again.

But Sophie is observant, despite, not because of, her Sight. She sees the way Helena scratches at her own hands and wrists with her fingernails, the way she tugs with shaking hands at the flyaway strands of her own hair.

The following morning, Sophie makes a point of arriving early at the Wells residence the following morning. Helena, having just returned from a mission, will not be expected at the Warehouse until later in the day, so Sophie arrives before Helena awakens, early enough that she is halfway through kneading the fresh bread-dough when Helena emerges from her bedroom and says, “I’ve need of a bath, Sophie, do you mind if I occupy the scullery?”

“A bath, now?” Sophie asks. “But it’s morning.”

Helena shrugs. “I wasn’t home until late last night.”

She watches with suspicion as Helena walks stiffly through the kitchen and closes the door.

Some time later, Helena emerges, hands reaching back behind her neck to fasten the final buttons of her dress. She must have tied her hair up to keep it dry, because only the loose strands at the base of her neck seem damp.

“Here,” Sophie says, wiping her hands on a towel. “Let me help you with those buttons.”

“No!” Helena shouts, much louder than necessary, swiveling her back away, toward the wall. Sophie steps back, hands raised above her shoulders like a criminal at gunpoint.

“All right!” she says. “All right.”

Helena takes a seat at the table and dives into the plate of fresh bread, soft-boiled eggs, and fruit slices with considerably more vigor than she’d brought to the roast chicken the night before. She leans over the plate and that’s how Sophie notices the place where the dress gapes open in the back—the single button that Helena, in her contortions, apparently failed to close.

Wordlessly Sophie reaches for the button and its paired slit, and then things happen quickly: Helena jerks away and jumps to her feet, but not fast enough for Sophie to miss the glaring red skin visible through that gap, not fast enough to keep Sophie from gasping at the sight.

“What’s happened to you, Helena?” Sophie asks quietly.

“Nothing,” Helena says.

“That’s not nothing. Your skin’s cherry-colored.”

Helena blinks, and then looks down.

“Where did you go last night, Helena?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Helena replies, hotly.

“None of my concern?” Sophie says, louder. “How long have I known you, Helena, for you to say that your wellbeing is none of my concern?!”

Helena crosses her arms across her chest and her eyes narrow.

“Let me see it,” Sophie says. She takes a cautious step closer, and then another.

“Sophie—“

“That injury needs to be tended,” Sophie says. “Let me see it.”

Later, the events of the next few minutes will play through Sophie’s mind again, like one of the new moving pictures that Caturanga has described to her, ticking through her mind as a series of images.

Sophie approaches Helena so slowly, so carefully, that Helena, it seems, forgets to shy away like the timid filly she seems to have become. Helena doesn’t move until Sophie’s hands touch her shoulders and then she flinches as though those hands were hot irons. Sophie moves carefully behind her, and unfastens just enough of the buttons to see the cross-hatch of purpling-red welts across her back. She opens a fourth button and they extend still lower—a fifth button and they extend lower still. Behind those fresh welts Sophie can see the not-fully-healed bruises of a previous encounter.

“Who did this to you, Helena?” Sophie breathes.

Helena’s shoulders shift under her fingertips as she swallows. “Nobody.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Helena! Who did it?”

Quietly, “A woman.”

“A woman? Who? Which woman? Did this happen in Oxford?”

“No!” Helena wheels around to face Sophie again, her dress sagging at the shoulders as it gapes open behind her back. “No. It happened not a mile from here, in Marylebone.”

"In Marylebone? How—" Sophie's words taper off with the sudden onset of understanding.

Helena swallows and looks to the side. Her hand rises to clutch at the drooping collar of her dress.

Sophie presses her lips firmly together and crosses the small kitchen in two careful steps. When she puts her hands on Helena's shoulders, Helena flinches, her gaze remaining persistently downcast. Sophie swallows and then uses that touch on Helena's shoudlers to guide her around, to face the stove, and then she begins, carefully, to refasten the closures on the dress.

"My father had scars," Sophie says. Her hands are firm, they do not tremble, as they slip the buttons back into place.

Helena remains quiet.

"He got them before The Act was signed," Sophie says. "He never told me what he'd done to get them. It was a secret he took to his grave." The topmost button is fastened now. She puts her hands back on Helena's shoulders, holding her in place as she leans forward, closer to Helena's ear, and says, "And yet you've paid someone to do this to you. How can you do this to yourself?"

Helena twitches again, as if to shake off a fly. But the steps that take her forward, away from Sophie's touch, are solid, confident. She walks toward the kitchen door, toward the hallway and the front door beyond, but she pauses in the doorway, one hand curled around the doorjamb.

Without turning her head, Helena says, "I've nothing left of her but pain, Sophie. To feel pain has become the nearest I can come to feeling her presence."

She disappears into the hallway without waiting for a response. Sophie hears the front door open, and then close again.

Once the bread is baked, Sophie dusts herself off and walks to the Warehouse, where Rajinder is sitting, as usual, in his office, poring over his paperwork.

"I need a sheet of paper," she says, "and Daguerre's plate."

Rajinder looks up, brow furrowed. "You're welcome to all the paper you need," he says, holding up a half-filled form in example, "but I'll need an explanation for the plate."

“It’s something for Helena,” Sophie says.

Rajinder blinks at her, then rolls his neck until the cartilage pops, and then bends and pulls a sheet of paper from a box beneath his desk. “Very well,” he says, as he stands. “This way.”

The plate is from the first Daguerrotype machine. It’s not a dangerous artifact, by most measures, but for a person with the Sight it’s a spectacular one: it has dozens of auras, maybe hundreds, all at once, not merging but coexisting, shimmering alongside each other like fluids of different densities.

Sophie closes her eyes. She calls up one of her clearest memories of Christina: the girl had been sitting on the chesterfield in the drawing room, looking out the window while awaiting her mother’s return from work. Sophie had just finished baking sugar biscuits, topped with strawberry preserves, and brought one into the drawing room on a plate.

"Christina," Sophie had said, "it's your favourite. Have one."

Christina had turned from the window, then, and smiled so brightly at Sophie for just a second or two before she'd bounded down from her seat and run over, arms outstretched for the treat, saying, "I won't spoil my supper, I promise!"

That smile—she holds its image in her mind as she touches the corner of the paper to the edge of Daguerre's plate. A strange feeling passes over her—a soft edge over her skin, like the line of the surface of the bath water as it slides down one's body as one rises out of the tub—and then she opens her eyes, and there it is, a small image of Christina printed on the paper.

In the plate's swirling auras, Sophie cannot pinpoint her own—the bit of memory, the bit of herself that she has sacrificed to the artifact in exchange for this image.

"She looks lovely in that picture," Rajinder says. He sighs. "I wish I could ask you when the image is from, but…"

Sophie smiles a little, and swallows, and shrugs. It's not as painful as she might have feared. It's hard to feel a sense of loss for a memory that's simply vanished, as though it had never been there in the first place.

"I wish I could create a bigger one, but can't bring myself to sacrifice any more of my memories of her," Sophie says.

As they walk side-by-side back toward the office, Rajinder taps his chin. "You know," he says, "among my mother's possessions I have a very lovely gold locket. I think the picture would fit in it."

The locket is burnished brass, oblong, with a red stone inlaid, and hanging on a string of pearls.

"They're not real pearls," Rajinder says, apologetically. "It's not an expensive piece, but it is quite lovely, don't you think?"

"Quite," Sophie says. She opens the locket and fits the small image inside. She smiles. "Perfect."

Helena and Wolcott are on a retrieval in Bath but they return the following day, in the evening, after dinnertime.

"I'm not going anywhere tonight," Helena says, in lieu of greeting. "You needn't be here to save me from myself. Go home to your husband."

Sophie sets aside the book she's been reading in the drawing room and rises to her feet. "In a moment," she says. "I've something for you."

Helena crosses her arms over her chest, distrustfully, and straightens her spine as though someone's drawn it up with a string.

The locket has been in a box on a side table in the drawing room since the morning. Sophie retrieves it now and hands it to Helena.

Helena's eyes move from Sophie's, to the box, and back again.

"Open it," Sophie says.

Helena's eyes widen when she sees the necklace; she lifts it carefully in her hands. "It's beautiful," she says, turning the small pendant in the palrm.

"Open it, Sophie says again.

Helena furrows her eyebrows and looks closer. Sophie sees her face soften in understanding when she sees the tiny hinge and latch; she fumbles with them for a moment and then the locket opens in her hand.

And then the hand that had opened the locket flies up to Helena's mouth, and then she's fumbling behind her for the arm of the needlepoint chair behind her, and dropping into that chair.

A minute passes, and another. Sophie waits. Finally Helena looks up, eyes wet and red, and says, simply, "How?"

"Never mind that," Sophie says. She steps around Helena to the edge of the chesterfield and sits down. Slowly, she reaches out and closes the locket, and then she closes Helena's fingers around it.

"If you need a piece of her, have this piece," Sophie says. "She wouldn't want you to celebrate your suffering by harming yourself."

They sit together in silence until Charles comes home from his evening at the pub.

"Heavens, Sophie, you're here late," he says—and then he sees Helena, slumped but stiff in the chair, and his eyes widen in understanding.

Now that Helena will not be alone, Sophie rises and goes to fetch her coat.

"Let me fetch you a Hansom," Charles says.

A few minutes later, as Charles helps Sophie into her cab, he says, "Is she all right?"

Sophie nods. "She will be."

The following day, when Sophie sees Helena in the evening, she is warmed to see the locket resting against that pale breastbone. But then Helena says: "You sacrificed a memory."

"You were harming yourself," Sophie says. "It felt worthwhile."

Helena's shoes make a hollow sound as she crosses the stone kitchen floor to the counter where Sophie is putting dinner onto plates.

"I couldn't do it," Helena says.

Sophie turns her head, eyebrows furrowed.

Helena grasps Sophie's wrist and pulls until Sophie's hand is palm-up between them. Then she reaches into one of the pockets of her waistcoat – that ridiculous, mannish waistcoat—and removes… a necklace.

A locket. A rectangular one, decorated in pale colors.

"It's less elaborate than the one you gave me," she says, "but I saw it in a shop and liked that it looked like a book."

Carefully, Sophie pries the locket open and sees the same image of Christina that she had put in Helena's locket.

"I couldn't bring myself to use Daguerre's plate and lose any memory of her in exchange for a new image," Helena says. She shrugs and smiles awkwardly. "So I used Zuccato's stencil to copy the one picture you gave me." She holds her hands up in front of them—they're blackened with artifact-induced ink.  "It'll fade in a few weeks' time. The image is less clear but I can live with blackened hands more easily than with the knowledge that I've given away…"

"It's all right," Sophie says. She finds the clasp on the necklace and slips it open, closing it again around her neck. The chain is long; the pendant settles almost between her breasts, under her dress. She clutches at it, for a moment. And then Helena is smiling at her, more warmly than she has smiled at her in months. And Sophie feels herself smile, more warmly than she ever smiles. And then Helena hast stepped into Sophie's body, has slipped her arms around Sophie's waist, and Sophie slips her arms around Helena's, and when Helena starts to cry Sophie holds her up, holds her tight, like she had done with her own daughter when their grandmother died, more than a decade ago.

 

/

 

Helena's locket becomes tarnished from how frequently she opens and closes it, but its backside remains a polished brass from the constant friction against the skin of her chest.

For a time, Sophie can see that it soothes her.

But then that mauve, soothing tone begins to be encroached upon by the red that is so familiar, to Sophie, on Helena.

Helena says thing like, "She should be here. She should _be_ here," and her tone is angry.

Christmas comes. Helena refuses to put up a tree, or to arrange a gift exchange. Sophie stays with Rajinder for the day, and assumes that Charles and Helena will spend the day together, working on some new literary project.

But the following day, when she returns to the Wells home, she arrives as Helena is leaving, suitcase in hand.

"Retrieval?" Sophie asks.

"No," Helena replies. "Paris."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Myka finds a month-to-month loft sublet in a gentrifying area of downtown Colorado Springs. She can’t afford it on what she’s making working for her parents at the bookstore, but she’s got a pretty solid savings account from her low-expense living in South Dakota and figures it’s low-commitment anyway.

Tracy loves it. “Have I ever told you how much I love open-plan living?” she gushes. “If I didn’t have a husband—and a real need to put a door between me and his ESPN sometimes—I’d totally want to live in a place like this.” She wanders through the kitchenette, squeals a little at the click-seal on the chrome-fronted refrigerator and runs her hand over the top of the vintage-styled espresso machine. “God, what kind of nouveau-riche investment banker did you rent this from?”

Myka can’t help but smile, a little, at Tracy’s energy, as she leans forward on the couch, elbows on her knees. “Freelance journalist,” she says. “He’s off in Tunisia or something for a few months for a story.”

“He must be good, to afford this place,” Tracy says. She drops into the armchair opposite Myka and smiles, crossing her feet on the glass coffee table.

“I think his parents pay the rent,” Myka says, with an eye-roll. “I’m pretty sure what I’m paying him is going toward his airfare and travel costs. But, whatever, if it works for both of us.”

“I’ll say. You? Are hosting every girls’ night from now until forever. Or until you remember that you’re too big for this town and go somewhere else. Whatever comes first.”

Myka laughs ruefully at that and drops her head against the back of the sofa. “I’m not sure I _am_ too big for this town, Trace.” She sighs. “I mean, I tried to be. But here I am, back again.”

Tracy hums quietly, and then the silence stretches between them until Myka rolls her head against the leather couch cushions, pulling Tracy into her line of sight. Tracy, who is looking like she wants to either laugh or ask a question, and can’t decide which to do.

“What?” Myka asks.

Tracy shakes her head and chuckles. “You just haven’t told me why you came back.”

“Maybe I don’t want to tell you.”

What, after all, could she say, to her perfect homecoming-queen sister who could do no wrong in their father’s eyes, when Myka could do no right? _Look, sis, I failed the way he always said I would. Aren’t you proud?_

Myka runs her fingers through her hair and then pinches the tip of a little clump, holding the split ends up, inspecting them.

“I’ve been thinking about straightening my hair,” she says, hoping that would change the subject, but—

“Omigod,” Tracy says, dropping her feet to the floor and leaning forward. “Oh my _god_. Of course. A breakup, right?”

“Tracy—“

“It _has_ to be a breakup. The first thing every girl does after she gets dumped is to change her hair. Right?”

 Myka sighs.

“Was it your partner?  What’s his name—Pete? I’ve seen pictures, Myka, and _damn_ , I'd be heartbroken too if he dumped me—“

“Tracy!” Myka says, louder. Tracy zips her lips shut and looks back at her, eyes twinkling, brows raised in expectation.

“There was no breakup. Especially not with Pete," Myka says.

“Wait wait, does that mean you’re dating Pete?”

“No!” Myka throws her hands out in front of her to stop the oncoming train that this conversation is fast becoming. “No, I am not dating Pete, and I did not break up with Pete. No dating at all, and no break-ups at all.”

She hazards a sidelong glance at Tracy, who’s biting her lip and smirking.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Tracy says.

Myka rolls her eyes. “Cute. Very cute. When did you decide to actually read Hamlet?”

Tracy stands up now, smiling, and says, “Three words, sister mine: Young. Mel. Gibson.”

And now Myka can’t help but laugh. “If you weren’t married, I’d introduce _you_ to Pete. You’d be a match made in… Blockbuster.”

“Netflix, Myka. Get with the times.” Tracy stretches, rolls her neck, and says, “On that note, I’ve got to head home. Date night. Kev and I are going to see that DiCaprio movie.”

“I read it’s good,” Myka says, following Tracy to the door.

“Of course you _read_ that,” Tracy laughs.

In the entryway, there’s a small phone table with a notepad. Almost as an afterthought, Tracy pauses there and pulls out her phone, scrolling through the contacts and then copying down the number.

“My stylist,” she says. “She’s great. Talk to her about the—“ she gestures vaguely at Myka’s head—“straightening thing. And tell her I sent you. It’ll get me a discount next time I go in.”

“Thanks,” Myka says.

Myka stands in the doorway as she watches Tracy walk down the hall toward the complex stairs. Just before she turns, Tracey wheels around and calls out: “Like it or not, Miss ‘no break-ups’”’ – she puts air-quotes around the words—“I _am_ going to get this story from you. I will. Just you wait.”

Myka rolls her eyes and waves her sister away, but when she turns back into the apartment, she’s smiling.

 

/

 

Jason, the physics teacher, says that every person carries an average of 15 lbs per square inch of atmospheric pressure bearing down on their shoulders, but we don’t notice it because it’s always been there, from the moment we were born. We carry a little less, in Cheyenne, because of the altitude, he says, but still.

He says this to Emily with a twinkle in his eye as he pours two cups of coffee in the staff room and hands the first one to her.

Emily likes Jason; she appreciates the exuberance he brings to the classroom, the sense of wonder he infuses into his lessons, like the material is so exciting that a person can’t possibly _not_ be fascinated by it. It’s the kind of thing that’s contagious: students like his classes because _he_ likes his classes.

There’s nothing _not_ to like about Jason, really. He’s friendly. He’s polite. He’s handsome, in a muscular, square-jawed kind of way (she’s seen more than one student doodle his name in swirling letters on the covers of their notebooks). He coaches volleyball for the local Boys  & Girls Club. He helps the aging art teacher to hang student pieces high on the walls in her classroom because she’s afraid of falling.

There is something strangely… familiar, about Jason, even though she knows she’s never met anyone quite like him. She wishes she were interested. She truly does. When he invites her to dinner, it’s a relief that she can use their professional relationship as an excuse not to develop a more… personal one.

But Emily Lake has carried about 15 lbs per square inch of atmospheric pressure upon her body for her entire life and as a result has never known to think about it.

Other things she has never known to think about:

Why she has no pictures of herself as a child.

Why she has faded, grey stretch marks on her stomach.

Why her right hand aches before it rains.

Why she has that long scar along her left thigh.

Why the calluses on her fingertips are so thick.

She has no idea, but it never really occurs to her to wonder.

 

/ 

 

Tracy is sitting at Myka's laptop at the breakfast bar in Myka’s apartment, and Myka is draped across the couch, her newly-straightened and darkened hair draping over the arm, almost long enough to touch the floor.

“We need a username for you,” Tracy is saying.

“Come up with something,” Myka says. “You’re better at this than me.”

“But it needs to represent _you!_ ” Tracy insists. Then she sighs. “Let’s think about things you like. You like… books. Books, and hippie herbal teas and expensive coffee drinks.”

“Yes. I like all those things.”

“You drive a Subaru. You live in a loft. You have a gun license.”

“My job required the license,” Myka says absently. She can’t stop running her fingers through her hair. It’s so much longer, now, without the curls, and it doesn’t snag between her fingers. It’s nice to touch.

“We should just call you ‘Yuppie,’” Tracy continues unhindered, “But that’s probably taken so we’d have to personalize it. Yuppie1982? YuppieMOB?”

Myka hurls a throw pillow. It bounces off the back of Tracy’s shoulder and falls with a huff to the floor. Tracy wheels around in the swivel chair and glares: “’YuppieMOB’ isn’t taken, so unless you want the eligible men of Colorado Springs to think you’re some kind of confused suburban gangster, you’ve got exactly twenty seconds to give me something better.”

Myka rolls her eyes, then grabs the second throw pillow and pulls it over her face and groans.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she mumbles into the microfiber.

“We’re doing it,” Tracy says. “Come on. Think.”

Myka pulls the pillow down, hugging it against her chest and sighs. “Okay. Okay. Um. I like to read. I used to fence. I’m a crack shot and I throw a mean right hook, so—“

They agree on username _HitTheBooks82_.

And that’s just about as far as they get in the creation of Myka’s OKCupid profile, because then Tracy says, just in the course of narrating her actions, “and you’re interested in men only…”

And Myka says, “Well, actually...”

Tracy wheels around in her chair, eyes wide, mouth agape. “Myka. Ophelia. Bering.”

Myka hides her face behind the throw pillow again, groaning.

She stays buried behind the pillow but she can hear Tracy stand up, her stocking feet walking around the breakfast bar into the kitchen. Cupboards open and close, things rattle and clink. Then more footsteps, coming closer, and then something denim-clad nudges her in the elbow.

She’s got to be as red as this damn cushion when she pulls it away from her face. She’s sure of it.

Tracy is holding two rocks glasses, and Myka knows from the color that it’s bourbon over ice.

“Sit up,” she says. Myka does, and accepts the drink, forcing herself to sip it more carefully than she really wants to.

Tracy drops into the armchair and plunks her feet on the coffee table, crossed at the ankles. “Tell me all about her.”

 

/

 

Emily winds up with a cat mostly by accident.

He's a stray who's made himself a nest in the foundation of her apartment building. She sees him often when she leaves in the morning, and less often when she comes home after work, beady eyes glinting in the semi-dark of dawn or dusk. She doesn't think much of him.

She's carrying her trash out the first time she sees him fully. He's a mangy thing who trails her ten feet behind through the parking lot. She cooked fish last night for dinner and the packaging is in this bag; he's following the scent, she knows, looking for a snack. She tosses the bag into the dumpster and turns around to find him glaring at her in that way that, she will later discover, only cats can do, as though small decisions like this—to throw away a bag of fish drippings instead of leaving it where the cat can scavenge—is the only thing standing between the status quo and the Global Feline Takeover.

She tells herself it's his mangy fur and bony shoulders, and not that glare, that make her give him a wide berth when she walks back to the building entrance.

Every time she takes the trash out after that, he crawls out of his burrow to watch her menacingly. _You'll pay_ , he seems to say. _You'll pay for what you're not giving me._

After a few weeks, he starts to come out to glare at her when she walks to her car in the mornings, and again when she comes home.

Not long after that, it seems she sees his little patchy body every time she leaves her building, sitting and preening somewhere within sight but just out of reach.

He still looks like he wants to murder her, every time, but she begins to find his little grey face strangely comforting, as much a part of her routine as her morning coffee. She doesn't realize just how invested she's become in those accusatory yellow eyes until she comes home from school, one afternoon, and they aren't there.

She tries not to take it personally. He's a cat, after all. It's not like they have an actual arrangement.

She tries not to take it personally when he doesn't materialize later that evening when she takes her trash bag out to the dumpster.

She's almost back to the door when she hears pitiful mewling and spins around faster than she knew she could do. It's coming from behind the electrical box, near his den. It's cold out and she tugs her parka tighter around herself as she steps, quietly, toward the sound, hoping not to scare him off.

It had been a needless hope. The cat isn't going anywhere. He couldn't, because he's penned in a live trap, pawing at the empty can of cat food used to lure him there.

Emily sighs. She can hardly blame the landlord for wanting to clear the property of a stray animal. The trap is labeled for the animal rescue, so he's even done it without the intention of hurting the cat. But the fool animal is looking up at her like Oliver Twist himself, frightened and hungry through the beaten wire mesh.

She sighs and picks the trap up by its handle. It's a little after six and the rescue stays open until seven, so she can make it if she hurries.

Ninety minutes later Emily re-enters her apartment with, in one hand, a large Petco shopping bag containing pet food and bowls, a litter-box and starter-pack of litter, a scratching post, a cat bed, and a newly-filled prescription for ivermectin; and in the other, a brand new cat-carrier containing a wailing, newly-flea-bathed, newly-vaccinated, newly-dewormed, newly-microchipped, newly-named Dickens the cat.

When she first lets him out of his carrier, he bolts immediately for the sofa and disappears beneath it.

But by the time she returns from school on the second day, his scrawny body is sprawled along the back of that same sofa, absorbing the dying rays of sunset, looking contentedly at her like this is all he's wanted from her all along.

By the end of a month, he's filled out nicely, the mangy patches in his fur almost filled in, and he spends most of his evenings draped over her shoulder like a stole while she sits on that sofa to grade essays or read novels.

 

/

 

Myka does, eventually, finish creating that OKCupid profile, at Tracy's insistence. And she lists herself as interested in both men and women, also at Tracy's insistence.

"Sounds like you had, like, a real _thing_ for this Helena," Tracy says. "Which means you've got to be at least a little wired for girls, right?"

Myka laughs ruefully. "Given the way that turned out, I really don't know if I should try it again."

Tracy rolls her eyes. "If everyone with a crazy ex swore off that entire sex, humanity would have died off millennia ago. Or I'd be a lesbian."

"She's not an ex."

"You're deflecting."

For the first three or four days, the flood of crude threesome requests that saturates her inbox is enough for her to call Tracy and say, "I'm deactivating this thing."

"Just wait," Tracy says. "Block the creepers so they can't bug you anymore and give it another couple of days."

"Three more days. That's it."

"That'll be enough. Trust me."

Tracy is right. Once Myka has filtered through the filth, she realizes that there are some interesting-seeming people reaching out to her. She exchanges some emails and books some dates. The first is with a guy named Brandon who works for a local tech start-up; he is handsome and friendly and good-natured and Myka is not attracted to him at all, perhaps because he reminds her, a little too much, of Sam. She meets a Kevin, but decides it's too weird to date someone who shares a name with her brother-in-law. Shinzo is boring. Chris has body odor problems. Matt gapes at her like she's the first woman he's ever joined for a beer. Yusuf—she likes him, he's the first one to get a third date, but at the end of the day his police officer job, his square-jawed handsomeness, his military background, his affable jokester-ism, they all combine to remind her a little too much of Pete.

She ignores the messages from women for the most part. It's just—it's a leap, to date a woman, and leaping requires a start from solid footing, and Myka isn't sure she's got that, yet. She starts to feel guilty about it: maybe she should just call herself straight on this thing and leave it at that.

But for some reason—maybe the open, smiling face on the profile picture, or maybe the fact that the username is RideAndRead03—Myka ends up exchanging messages with a girl named Gabriela. She calls herself 'Gabi' when they shake hands at the café. She's a tall, willowy figure, even taller than Myka, with carefully disheveled short hair and an urban artist's sense of style. Her smile and laugh come easily. She reminds Myka a little of a more exuberant, outgoing version of Leena: comfortable in her own skin and generally balanced. Literally, too, with the balance thing: during the season, she works ski patrol at Loveland and snowboards between shifts.

"I didn't know you could do ski patrol on a snowboard," Myka says.

Gabi grins and shrugs. "It's a brave new world. Some of the smaller hills still don't allow them because they're not great for pulling medical sleds, but the bigger places use snowmobiles for that anyway. And we can actually be better than skis for some backcountry work, depending on the conditions."

In the off-season, Gabi works odd jobs, usually here in Colorado Springs where she’s from. She’s staying with her brother, now, while she runs the sports program for a kids’ summer day-camp.

They have a second date for dinner, and then a third not-quite-date when Myka goes to watch Gabi's camp kids play an end-of-session public softball game. She gets there early enough to watch the kids warm up and Myka finds her eyes drawn to Gabi, an imposing figure on the field. Myka is athletic but she's never been sporty, and it's absorbing to watch Gabi run her students through warm-up drills, to see both the physical and the mental preparation at work.

The fourth date happens the night after the softball game—Myka thinks of it a separate date because they part ways in between, Gabi to take care of some end-of-day paperwork and then to shower and change, and Myka to help her father with the new shipment that came in the early afternoon—and then meet for dinner at a tapas place that Myka likes. They get a quiet corner booth, so they sit at a right angle to one another, not opposite. Myka’s heart pounds a little (nervousness? excitement? desire?) when their knees bump into each other and neither one of them pulls back. Myka is wearing a worn silver bracelet bequeathed to her by her grandmother; Gabi holds Myka’s hand to inspect it and, with the mental equivalent of a deep breath, Myka tangles their fingers together, and leaves them tangled when they fall to the padded bench between them.

They’re sipping wine and talking about books while they wait for their food. Gabi devours genre fiction: fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, all the stuff that Myka doesn’t generally read, but Myka loves that Gabi loves to read. Myka loves, awkward as it is, that when she’d explained on their first date that, yes, she is Bering as in “Bering & Sons,” Gabi had shaken her head in astonishment, “No way,” and then explained that she spent, like, all of her summer job money there when she was in high school, that she _still_ tries to buy her all her books there even though it’s hard to resist the siren call of Amazon pricing and convenience.

“Seriously, how did we never meet when we were kids?” Gabi asks. She runs her thumb over Myka’s knuckles.

Myka laughs. “I’m, what, three years older than you? There’s a huge gulf between 13 and 16. We might have met but not really noticed each other, right? We wouldn’t even have been on the same planet then.”

Gabi smiles brightly and laughs just a little and asks, “Are we on the same planet now?”

Gabi’s eyes are dark, like another pair of eyes that Myka knows, but they aren’t haunted, they aren’t depthless; they’re mirthful. The lines in the corners—more pronounced than they typically would be in a person Gabi’s age, no doubt due to wind and sun exposure on the ski slopes—come from smiling and laughing.

Myka bites her lip. Her hand tightens around Gabi’s, tugging her closer, just a little closer, and closer still, and then their lips finally touch. It feels different, the way their lips cling a tiny bit because they’re both wearing lipstick, the smoothness of the skin beneath the pad of Myka’s thumb, the way the pace is slow and easy, and nobody is frantic or clawing at themselves or anybody else, and nobody is pulling away.

It’s a sweet kiss. Gabi is tender, and responsive and soft, and Myka wonders how much of it is a woman thing and how much of it is just a Gabi thing. But either way, when they part, Myka is thrumming.

“Where are we, then?” Gabi asks, smiling. “Mars? Saturn? Pluto?”

Myka feels her grin pull lopsided up her right cheek but she can’t help it: “If we’re on Pluto, then we’re not on the same planet.”

Gabi laughs. “Wouldn’t it be even better to be on the same dwarf planet? I mean, we could both be on Jupiter and still be pretty far apart.”

“We could both be on Jupiter and get crushed by its gravity,” Myka retorts, eyebrow cocked.

“You’re a nerd.”

“Are you complaining?”

Gabi tips her head forward and kisses Myka again. “Not at all.”

Myka had walked to the restaurant from her apartment. Gabi gives her a ride home. In the lot outside Myka’s building, they spend twenty minutes making out like teenagers. Myka doesn’t care that they’re awkwardly tented toward each other across the gearshift, doesn’t even really care that if anyone were to look closely at them through the windshield they might see Gabi’s hand curved over Myka’s breast in the shadow of Myka’s seat-back. She’s surprised to find herself wanting to climb over the center console, to plant her knees on either side of Gabi’s hips; she is thrilled and terrified by the prospect of discovering Gabi’s body with her hands.

Instead, Myka pauses and pulls back, panting slightly, her hand still on Gabi’s shoulder, Gabi’s on the back of her neck.

“Listen, I should probably come clean about something,” Myka says.

Gabi stiffens a little and pulls back. “Okay?”

Myka licks her lips and looks down. “I’m really new at this.”

Gabi’s shoulders drop and she exhales, and for a moment Myka is tense with fear, until she hears the unmistakable sounds of breathy chuckling. “Jesus, Myka, the way you set that up, I thought you were about to be like, ‘Gabi? I killed a man and buried him in Palmer Park.’” She bites her lip and shakes her head, amused. “New at what? At dating women?”

Myka slumps back into her seat, eyes resting somewhere near the glove compartment, and feels herself blushing. “Yeah,” she says, then shrugs. “I just, I don’t want you to come up to my apartment with me right now. Even though a big part, a _huge_ part of me _does_ want you to come up, I don’t think I’m quite ready for that, and I feel like, you know, fourth date, heavy petting in the car, I’ve maybe set up an expectation—“

“Myka,” Gabi interrupts gently. She reaches across and rests her fingers on Myka’s thigh. “Let me ask you something.”

Myka swallows, and nods.

“Are you into me?”

Myka looks over at her and grins, because she can answer that one easily and honestly. “Yeah.”

“Good, because I’m into you,” Gabi says. She smiles, and squeezes with her fingers. “The last thing I want to do is screw that up by pushing you past your comfort zone. Nothing needs to happen before you’re ready for it, all right?”

Myka’s smile softens. Gabi is looking at her with a warm, open hopeful expression. Her lips are still a little reddened and Myka leans across to kiss them again. “Thanks.”

When Myka makes her way up to her apartment (another twenty minutes later, and alone), she might be floating ten feet off the ground.

 

/

 

Emily Lake loves apples.

She always has, for as long as she can remember. McIntosh, Gala, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, even Red Delicious, it doesn’t matter.

She’s never really understood why other people eat junk food to cheer themselves up when they feel badly.

Emily will choose a crisp, slightly chilled, delicious apple every time.


	14. In the Modern Vein: An Unsympathetic Love Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I sell pain, but what you're asking for is violence, and that, I don't sell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm annoyed with myself for posting so sporadically so I'm experimenting with a new process that may make it easier to post more often in slightly shorter chunks. If you have any strong opinions about this chapter vs. the others in terms of flow, etc, please let me know.
> 
> Marijuana use in this chapter. Also, as I work on pushing Helena further down her spiral of madness, I live in eternal awe of Hermitstull and the genius of her [Adventures of Wells and Wolcott](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1886964/chapters/4065909) series.
> 
> Hoping nobody throws rotten fruit over my handling of S&M in this. I am a very sex-positive love-your-kinks kinda gal but I also think that S&M, like anything else, can be done for the right reasons and for the wrong reasons, and Helena here is looking to it for the wrong reasons. It's a kind of self-harm-by-proxy for her; it's a way for her to feel physical pain that is sort of socially acceptable, at least in some circles. (Consider that your TW for this chapter).
> 
> UPDATE: Whoa, weird formatting issues that I didn't catch in the preview. Deleted the chapter and re-posted because that was easier than fixing. Sorry.

It's Boxing Day, 1896, and Charles wakes up to the smell of cooking sausage, and thanks the universe that the calendar has turned, it is no longer Christmas, and Sophie is back in the house.

He shaves hastily, wets his hair and combs it down, dresses, and stumbles down the stairs while tying his cravat by feel.

"G'morning, Sophie," he says, slipping into a chair at the table. "Smells wonderful."

"Thank you," Sophie says.

Charles watches her serve the sausage onto a plate, and then a pair of fried eggs, a ladleful of beans and a scone from the breadbox.

"I know most people feast on Christmas," he says, around a mouthful of scone, "But I feast every other day, when you cook."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Sophie says, with a smile, as she begins to stack the dishes to take into the scullery.

"Helena already ate?" Charles asks.

"I assume so," Sophie calls through the scullery door, "She left as I was arriving."

"Left?" Charles asks, "We were supposed to meet this morning to talk about my upcoming meeting with our publisher."

Sophie emerges back into the kitchen, eyebrows furrowed, and says, "Well, that's unlikely. She's on her way to Paris."

The word is a string that lifts him from his chair like a puppet. "Paris?" he says. "No, Sophie, you haven't let her go to Paris, have you?"

"Well, I—"

Charles is already striding toward the hallway. "Ask Caturanga to wire notice to the authorities there."

"What? Charles, slow down and explain yourself."

Charles pauses with his scarf half-wound around his neck and looks at Sophie, because she is a brilliant woman, truly—how could she not have seen this?

"What reason would _Helena_ have to go to Paris, Sophie?"

Her face softens, and he can see that she suddenly, very suddenly, understands. She reaches for her coat. "I'll speak to Rajinder. He'll have the authorities notified. Where are you going?"

He shrugs. "Paris."

Charles is standing on the platform, awaiting the next train to Dover, when a familiar—if unexpected—figure in a bowler hat strides up to him.

"Wolly," he says, "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you," Wolly shrugs. "Caturanga suggested that I tag along in case we needed to draw on our organization's vast influence to… find her."

The feeling that courses through Charles is both relief and new fear, because of course, he'd feared that they might not be fast enough, that she might be too far ahead, and it's even more terrifying to have that fear reaffirmed by another person who shares it.

But yes, from what he's learned, it seems the Warehouse could help them. But perhaps more importantly: it could, perhaps, protect her from the consequences of her actions, at least while she’s in France.

And he realizes, now, that he’s happy he won’t have to be alone with her while he brings her back to England. He gets sick on the ferry, for one thing, and tries to imagine keeping track of her by himself while he’s heaving over the railing.

 "You don't get seasick, do you?" he asks Wolly.

"No."

Charles claps him on the shoulder. "Good man."

 

/

 

Nearly everyone gets sick on the ferries as they pitch and roll over the rough, windy waters of the English Channel. The railings are lined with men and women heaving over the side of the boat, looking pallid and green. On this boat, near the front, stand two men, one of whom has the collar of his coat turned up as though to hide from prying eyes that might notice him; one might assume, based on the neat trim of his moustache and the modern parting of his hair, that he worries that an available young woman might notice and judge him for his ailment. Behind him, another man of similar age, apparently unaffected by the tumult of the boat, wears one hat and holds another—presumably the hat of the ill man leaning over the railing—and looks out over the water as though watching for danger across the horizon.

They fade into the crowd, these two men, but they have been noticed by a dark-haired woman who also stands by the railing, but a different railing, on the opposite side of the boat and near the rear. She boarded earlier than they did, and saw them when they boarded as well; she lurked away from them, in the shadows, and then she took her spot where she is now, as far from them as she can possibly be while still being out of doors.

She gets seasick too, you see, and she has no desire to trouble the hardworking staff of the ferry company by becoming sick in the second-class indoor area where she has purchased her ticket.

One might think her an unusual woman, wearing trousers and a waistcoat, her shirt too-far unbuttoned to suggest that she is of good breeding or high morals. Now, as she stands by the outdoor railing, her trousered legs are parted, her satchel braced between them, her hands braced deep in her pockets. Her eyes are open, trained forward, always aware of the walkway from whence one of those men might approach.

One wouldn't know that the pitching and rolling of her stomach, the way her quickly-devoured breakfast of yesterday's leftover bread and butter threatens to revisit her, is not a sensation she seeks to flee but rather the focus of her concentration. She sinks into it. She embraces it as a thing that grounds her. Her back itches from healing but she does not want to heal. She wishes to suffer—to feel pain, to feel visceral discomfort, so she sinks into the nausea, she fights the urge to vomit not out of desire to maintain public propriety but rather because vomiting would alleviate her suffering, at least for a minute, and she doesn't want that. She salivates and swallows, and salivates and swallows, and hopes that if she can maintain this feeling of sickness for long enough she will be able to convince herself to remain onboard the ship at Calais, to ride it back to Dover, to return home to London without doing what she intends to do, what feels like the only thing that could ever give her wretched soul relief.

 

/

 

On land, his stomach finally beginning to settle, Charles turns to Wolly and says, "I'm terribly glad you're here, because, to be frank, I've no idea where to begin to look for her."

"The Gendarmerie Royale," Wolly says, as he steps into the road to flag a Hansom, or whatever the hell they call a carriage-for-hire in France." She took supplies from the Warehouse last night. Caturanga had just begun to survey when I left him, and he's to wire us a full list at the Gendarmerie."

"Supplies from the Warehouse. Your sodding Warehouse." Charles follows Wolcott into the cab, then reaches into his overcoat for his pipe and tobacco. "I suppose there's a limit to how much she could have carried."

Wolly huffs out a mirthless laugh. "There's a bag that Caturanga keeps in his workshop and carries on missions. It was the first thing he noticed that was gone."

"Only so many objects fit in a bag," Charles says.

"Not this bag. It will carry anything that will fit through its mouth."

Charles sucks and puffs desperately on his pipe. "Your sodding Warehouse," he growls again. "Once we have the list—what then?"

"I can only hope that the list will give us some sense of her plans, and we can move forward from there. If not, we'll go to the Commissaire near the house where… it happened. And we'll review their evidence and see if we can do a better job than they've done of identifying the killers."

Charles puffs futilely on the dregs of his pipe, then leans forward and dumps the ash out the side of the cab. "You think she's after them," he says.

"Of course, don't you?"

"Yes." He tucks the pipe back into his coat. "I simply hoped you'd think something different. That she's here to exhume Christina's body or some such thing."

"Oh, bollocks," Wolly groans.

"What?"

"Nothing. We'll have to check that, too."

Outside the Commissaire, Wolly pulls a small cloth purse from his pocket and empties it into his palm: two small brass objects tumble out. Charles watches him pick one up and flip a tiny switch on its end; it begins to writhe and wriggle like a worm on a fish-hook. Charles watches, transfixed, as Wolly tips his head to the side and eases the wriggling contraption into his ear, grimacing fiercely.

"What the devil—"

"Here," Wolly says, holding out the second device. "Babelfish. Feels like a demon working its way in, but you'll be able to speak and understand any language for as long as it's in there."

Charles takes the device and squints at it. "So that's how she did it," he says.

"It's also why she had that devil of a migraine for three days after she got home," Wolly says. "Consider yourself warned. Don't take it out until you're prepared to spend several days bedridden."

"I don't expect I'll be taking it out until you explain to me how to remove it," Charles says. With nervous fingers, he flips the switch on the end of the device, then does his best to mimic what Wolly had done, tipping his head to the side and letting the gadget worm its way in. It feels, as promised, absolutely atrocious, as though someone had tied a string to both eardrums and was pulling them in toward the center of his skull, the sound in his head like the high-pitched whine of a radio being tuned. Then, with a silent _pop_ , everything clears.

" _Très bien. Allons-y?"_ he says, and then claps his fingers over his mouth in surprise.

Wolly grins. "Yes, let's go," he replies.

 

/

 

Amélie Duprés is proud of the venue she maintains a short distance from the Tuileries. Hiding in plain sight, she thinks: nobody cares about the high-class Madame who operates in the shadow of the desperate wretches of the Tuileries. Her business is exclusive; one must first know where it is to have access, and that alone filters anyone without the appropriate connections.

She's running her accounts in the early evening, before her client for the night has arrived, when her assistant knocks on the door to her office. "Il-y-a… quelqu'un… qui veut de votre temps, Madame _." There's… someone… who wants time with you, Madame._

Amélie sighs, and cracks her neck. "Je n'ai rien sur mon calendrier avant la soirée," she says. "Dites-lui qu'il a besoin d'un rendez-vous pour un moment avec la Madame." _I have nothing on my calendar before tonight. Tell him he'll need an appointment for a moment with the Madame._

She is not impressed, not pleased at all, when her assistant hovers nervously in the doorway, smoothing her bodice unnecessarily. "Quoi?" she asks. _What?_

"C'est une femme, Madame."

Amélie pauses at that. A woman is a rare visitor indeed.

The assistant continues, "Envoyée par la Damme Berkley a Londres, dit-elle," _She was sent by the Lady Berkley in London, she says_.

The woman waiting in the foyer has the air of a frightened mouse as she stands opposite Amélie. No, not a mouse: a fox, cornered by hounds, looking for a way to escape.

"Qu'est-ce que vous voulez, chérie?" Amélie asks. _What is it you want, dearest?_

"Un peu… un peu de soulagement, s'il-vous plait, Mme. Duprés," she replies. _A little relief_ , _please._

 Amélie steps closer. She is bizarrely-attired, this young woman, as though clothes for a man have been modified and adapted to flatter a female body; she straightens, doesn't shrink, under the Madame's stiff glare.

Amélie appreciates that resolve. "Du soulagement," she echoes. "Le soulagement n'est pas ce que vous recevrez ici, avec moi." _Relief is not what you'd receive here, with me."_

The young woman straightens further, squares her shoulders, and meets her Madame's gaze with an edge of insolence. "C'est dans la souffrance que je trouve mon soulagement, Madame." _It's in suffering that I find my relief, Madame._

Amélie catches the young woman's chin between her thumb and forefinger; turns it right, then left. The girl's eyes cast down and to the side and Amélie appreciates this show of deference, but she can also feel the tension in that jaw, the tremble in the body. She glances down and sees the girl's tightened fists at her sides.

She sighs and steps back. "Non."

The young woman's eyes widen, a mix of surprise and anger, and she says, "Non? Pourquoi non?"

Why 'no,' indeed?

"Ma fille," Amélie says, with a sigh. She steps around to the opposite side of the dark wooden reception desk. "Les gens qui viennent me voir sont ceux qui trouvent leur plaisir dans las douleur." _My girl, the people who come to see me are those who find their pleasure in pain._

"Mais oui! C'est la raison que je vous ai retrouvée!" _Well, yes! That's why I found you!_ She's animated now, and Amélie can see the loose strands of her hair falling from her bun as she gesticulates, a little too wildly, under the lamp. "S'il vous plaît, je suis – je ne peux pas l'expliquer, mais j'ai tellement de besoin… si vous ne m'aiderez pas, je ne sais pas… j'ai peur que—" _Please, I am—I can't explain it, but I have such a need for… if you don't help me, I don't know, I'm afraid that—"_

"C'est assez!" Amélie holds up a hand. _Enough!_ "Je vends la douleur et la soumission comme plaisir, mais vous ne demandez pas le plaisir. Vous voulez, il me paraît, m'utilizer comme instrument dans votre automutilation.  Je vends la douleur, mais ce que vous me demandez, c'est la violence, et ça je ne le vends pas." _I sell pain and submission as pleasure, but you're not asking for pleasure. You want, it seems to me, to use me as a tool in your self-harm. I sell pain, but what you're asking for is violence, and that, I don't sell."_

Amélie will not go to bed that night thinking about limits and tipping points. She will spare a thought for the aggrieved woman she sent back out into the dusk, carrying an unfashionable satchel, but it will be a slight thought, a wonder about what would drive someone so young to such desperate and miserable lengths. She will not know that the woman will wander into the Tuileries and find an empty bench where she will sit and watch her hands shake. She will rub them nervously over her knees, and then she will pinch herself, scratch at the insides of her wrists. She will want to cry; she will be desperate to sob but she won't do it here, in the middle of a park before the dark is thick enough to grant her privacy.

So she will sit. She will remember the breathing exercises taught her by her Kempo master, when she was a child (was she ever a child, truly?). Then she will bend down, open the bag, and reach too deeply into it, her arm vanishing up to the shoulder. It will emerge with a telescope. She will smile darkly, and stand, and hold that telescope to her eye, and she will rotate her body slowly, until she will stop, jerkily, like the gears of a clock suddenly jammed. Then she will lower the telescope, smile, and begin to walk out of the park. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

For their next date, Gabi shows up at Myka’s apartment with a full grocery bag. “I hope you like Mexican food. Actually, I don’t even care if you do or not, because my grandmother’s enchilada recipe is good enough to change your mind.”

She unpacks all the ingredients onto the counter, and then, from the bottom of the bag, pulls something else; she tosses it to Myka. “No pressure if that’s not your thing. Just thought I’d bring it, in case.”

It’s an embroidered zippered pouch; the kind you could get for two dollars at most of the gift shops in Chinatown back in DC. Inside: rolling papers, a lighter, a dimebag of weed.

“Well, I’m not law enforcement anymore,” Myka laughs. She zips the pouch closed again and sets it on the counter. “We’ll see.”

The enchiladas are, as promised, blow-your-mind delicious.

“God,” Myka says, without thinking, “my friend Pete would drop to one knee and propose marriage after one bite of this.”

“Mmm, that’s nice and all, but I’m pretty sure your friend Pete isn’t my type,” Gabi jokes. Then: “I think this is the first time you’ve mentioned a friend to me. Who’s Pete?”

Myka stiffens. She shrugs and does her best to look nonchalant. “My old service partner,” she says. “We’re not in touch anymore, really.”

Myka tries hard to relax again after that. She really, really does, but it’s the second time she’s spoken about Pete since she left South Dakota and the first time she’s been the one to bring him up, and now it feels like he’s all she can think about.

“You okay?” Gabi asks as they stack dishes into the dishwasher together. “You’re, like, a thousand miles away.”

“Yeah,” Myka says. “Just—memory lane.” She reaches across the counter and picks up the little zippered pouch. “You know, it might be a good day for a little of this, after all.”

Myka has smoked weed exactly three times before. Well, technically, smoked it twice, and eaten it once in a cookie. All of them were in her freshman year of college, when her life was about 80% academics and 20% rebelling against her father, but when she decided she wanted to get into graduate school, she decided to call off the behavior that could land her with a record.

Together, she and Gabi open the window and shuttle the sofa to the floor right beneath it. Gabi rolls and lights the joint with practiced fingers and they pass it back and forth. Myka takes subtle pleasure in pressing her lips where Gabi’s have just been.

“Never woulda guessed I’d ever date a cop,” Gabi says, with a small laugh, before blowing a thin stream of smoke out the window.

“I was never a cop,” Myka says.

Gabi shrugs. “’Law enforcement,’ whatever. Secret service is even crazier than being a cop. You ever meet the president?”

“Oh yeah,” Myka says. She holds up her hand, index and middle fingers crossed. “We’re like this.” She looks at her own hand and imagines herself and the president _actually_ like that, twisted around each other like deformed carrots, and then she’s thinking about deformed carrots, and she’s giggling, just a little, and then harder, and harder, and she looks past her fingers and now Gabi is giggling too and neither of them can stop.

“Please don’t tell me there was any, like, Monica Lewinski type—”

“No! No.” Myka is still giggling so hard she can barely get the words out. “God, even if I’d wanted to, I would have been fired _so fast_.“

 Gabi grins. “Good,” she says. She reaches over and drops the butt of the burned-out joint onto the bit of tin foil they’ve put on the table.

“Good?” Myka sputters, indignantly. “Are you saying you’d be judging me for sleeping with the presi…”

Myka trails off because Gabi is slipping closer to her on the couch. Myka’s mouth is dry and she’s craving flavor, taste, _something_ , and the closer Gabi gets the more Myka is pretty sure that Gabi is really, perfectly, exactly what she wants.

“No,” Gabi says and she is as sleek and dark-eyed and sexily predatory as a tiger. “I’m saying I don’t want that picture in my head when I do this.”

There it is, Gabi’s mouth, Gabi’s tongue, with Myka’s mouth, Myka’s tongue. Myka lies back on the couch under the warm weight of it, pulling Gabi against her. She’s sort of high and having a hard time parsing the familiar from the strange in the warmth of Gabi’s body against her own, the way it’s hard but rounded and smaller than she’s used to feeling. She likes it, though, she likes all of it, likes the way Gabi’s fingers move against her face and neck and arms, she _really_ likes the way Gabi’s thigh feels between hers, and they’re both wearing jeans but it’s summer, it’s summer and Myka wishes they were wearing shorts so that she could feel skin against the skin of her legs. She wants to find skin so she slips her fingers under the hem of Gabi’s shirt, curls them against Gabi’s back and Gabi makes a pleased sound and arches like a cat.

 She wants more. Myka wants more, she wants Gabi’s hands on her own skin. She slips one of her hands out and fumbles for Gabi’s wrist, tries to coax Gabi’s touch to where she wants it. But Gabi twists her hand free and quietly breathes “no” into Myka’s ear.

Myka laughs. “What do you mean, ‘no’? You got to second base in the car last time.”

Gabi laughs breathily between kisses. “You’re adorable,” she says. “But you’re also really high.”

Myka stops. She pulls back. “Oh god,” she says, “am I acting really high?”

Gabi quirks a small smile. “I mean…”

"Why aren't _you_ acting high? We both smoked!" Myka is pushing her hair back from her face, trying to decide whether to glare at Gabi's knowing face or to turn away from it, to hide the incredibly embarrassing flush of her cheeks and dilation of her pupils. She shifts further away, to the opposite side of the couch.

"I smoke, like, every day, Myka. My tolerance is… stupid, to be honest."

"Oh god, oh god…" Myka swallows. "I'm such an idiot. I feel like such an idiot right now." She drops her head into her hands.

Gabi sits up and straightens her shirt before scooting closer to Myka. "You're not an idiot."

"I am," Myka says despondently. "We were having a great night and it could have turned into an even better night but I went and got…" she pauses, and then starts to giggle, "I got so _stoned_ and now you think I'm an idiot, and I was totally ready to go further with you."

Gabi laughs. She's rubbing Myka's back, up and down along her spine. "Third base this time? Because I might be about to decide that this nobility shtick I’m pulling right now is totally misguided if that means I get some topless action tonight."

Myka makes a half-laughing, half-crying sound and backhands Gabi lightly on the knee. "Don't make fun. I'm having, I’m having a _moment_ here. You think I’m an idiot."

"I don't."

"You do. And I _am_ an idiot. I'm an idiot for Pete, and I'm even more of an idiot for Claudia, and for—for—"

"Listen to these names pouring out of you." Gabi scoots closer again and wraps her arm around Myka, pulling her into her side.

Myka groans. "You should probably go. I'm making an ass of myself."

"No can do, Chiquita," Gabi says, with a chuckle. "You aren't used to this and I'm getting the vibe that you tend toward the paranoid type of stoned, so I'm staying right here until you sober up." 

Myka sighs and lets herself sag against Gabi's shoulder. Gabi makes a small, comforting sound and brings Myka with her as she stretches out along the sofa, her head settling on the armrest.

"Why don't you tell me what happened with this Pete guy?"

"It's so completely idiotic."

"I really doubt that."

Myka looks up at Gabi through the corner of her eye. Gabi isn't looking at her, she's looking up, at the ceiling, and her hand is warm and firm at the small of her back. And Myka starts to talk.

 

/

 

Pete feels like a bit of a dick for the way he’s treating this Steve guy, but somehow he can’t help it.

Like, there’s a lot about Steve that’s annoying. He’s uptight. Gets pretty pissy pretty easily for a guy who calls himself Buddhist. But he’s smart and (apparently) reliable and if Pete’s honest about it, he’s going to make a great Agent once he gets his sea legs.

Maybe if he’d start, like, wearing a curly wig and skinny jeans and a close shave or something, Pete might be able to figure out how to stop resenting everything about his presence.

 

/

 

Myka wakes up cotton-mouthed and groggy on top of her made bed, under a throw blanket, still wearing her clothes from the night before. It takes a minute (or three) of blinking before she remembers the previous night, of pouring her heart out to Gabi on the couch downstairs, of Gabi listening quietly and rubbing her back, and at the end, when she felt way more tired than she should have after just lying still and talking, Gabi had taken her upstairs and, apparently, put her to bed.

She’s relieved to find that she does remember the conversation, and that, while she’d been a little loose-lipped, she hadn’t divulged anything dangerous or confidential.

Myka rolls onto her stomach and groans into her pillow. _Hell of an impression, Bering_.

She stumbles to her feet and looks down over the edge of the loft to see Gabi sleeping flopped down on the sofa. The sight fills her with both relief and dread: she has to face her again, but perhaps she can do something to repair her image.

It’ll start with breakfast. She tiptoes down the stairs and across the living room as quietly as she can. She starts with the coffee pot, and then in the fridge she finds eggs and— _thank you Kevin for your purchasing habits, thank you Tracy for your concern for your husband’s cholesterol_ —bacon.

The bacon sizzles so loudly that Myka doesn’t hear the sofa groan and the floors creak when Gabi gets up. She turns around to pull the milk from the fridge and jumps about ten feet in the air to be met with the face of a groggy Gabi, hair cowlicked from her night on the couch, sitting at the breakfast bar.

“Hey,” Gabi smiles.

“Hey yourself,” Myka says, with a smile. She begins to lean across the counter for a kiss but Gabi turns her head just slightly away.

Myka forces a smile. _Morning breath_ , she tells herself. “I hope you like eggs and bacon?”

“God yes,” Gabi replies.

Gabi sits quietly, sipping her coffee, while Myka transfers the bacon onto a plate and then cleans out the frying pan before scrambling the eggs. The quiet between them starts as comfortable shared silence, but as they sit side-by-side and eat their breakfasts it stretches into something tense, prepared to snap.

“Do you want to have a shower?” Myka asks, eventually. “I’ve got some jeans I wear with heels that you could probably wear with your flats if you want to borrow clean clothes.”

Gabi picks up her mug to sip at her coffee again, and that’s how Myka knows she’s nervous: the cup has been empty for a few minutes.

“Do you want more coffee? I can make more,” Myka says, but as she begins to stand from her barstool Gabi stops her with a hand on her forearm. Myka freezes.

“Listen, Myka,” Gabi says.

The stool’s pleather seat squeaks a little as Myka sinks back down on it. She swallows a sigh: she knows where this is about to go.

 Gabi takes a breath. “I think you’re really great, but…“

Myka sighs and tips her forehead into her hands, elbows braced on the counter. “I screwed up, didn’t I.”

“No, no—“

Myka rolls her head just enough to the side to shoot Gabi a narrowed sidelong glance.

Gabi smiles a little, acquiescent. “Okay. Maybe a little.”

Myka groans and tips her eyes back down again. “Okay.”

Gabi turns toward Myka, propping her elbow on the counter. “Look, Myka, I’m not the kind of lesbian to have a problem dating a bi girl, and I’m not afraid to be with someone who hasn’t been with a girl before. You’re into me, I’m into you, then as far as I’m concerned, we’re good.”

Myka sighs. “But?”

“But I’ve got a hard line when it comes to… certain kinds of baggage.”

And now Myka’s confused, because she knows she hasn’t talked about Sam. Because the Warehouse is her most recent baggage, but Sam—the so-very-mundane shooting that she couldn’t manage to stop—is still her heaviest. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“This Pete guy,” Gabi says.

Myka bolts upright. “ _Pete?_ Oh my God, Gabi, Pete and I are _so_ not like that. Never, ever like that.”

Gabi shakes her head, a touch of sadness—no, _condescension_?—in her eyes. “You should hear yourself talk about him.”

“I _did_ hear myself talk about him. I heard every word I said. I—okay. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I do love Pete, but I swear to God, if you ever meet him, you can _never_ tell him I said that. I love Pete a lot but I can say with about a thousand percent certainty that kissing him would basically be like kissing my brother.”

Gabi is still shaking her head but now she’s laughing, quietly, breathily. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” she says.

Myka throws her head back and groans again, louder this time. “Have you been talking to my sister? Because that is _exactly_ what she said. To the word.”

“Based on what you’ve said about her, I’m pretty sure the only way I might ever have met your sister would have been if she sold me a book sometime,” Gabi says.

“Well, you’d probably get along. Apparently.” Myka presses her fingertips into her eyes. “So this is… you’ve really made up your mind?”

“I have,” Gabi says. “I’m sorry.”

Myka takes a deep breath and stands up. She picks up her empty plate and reaches for Gabi’s. “It’s fine,” she says.

“I’d like to be friends,” Gabi offers as Myka loads the plates into the dishwasher. “Could we—could we maybe try that?”

Myka stands back up and turns around. “Friends,” she says. “Sure.”

They part ways with promises to be in touch later, make plans for beers or something.

After Gabi leaves, Myka cleans the kitchen. She takes a shower, dresses in clean clothes, and starts a load of laundry. Then she goes to her laptop, logs on to OkCupid, and disables her profile.

She flops onto the sofa—the guilty sofa, still pressed up against the wall under the window—and opens the contacts screen on her phone. She scrolls down to Helena’s number. It’s pretty far down her “frequent contacts” list now. They more or less stopped texting when Helena moved into the B&B. When they did, it was often between one part of the Warehouse and another: “I’m taking an inventory break and making coffee. Want some?” or “I’m driving home in 30 minutes if you want to ride with me,” or “Could use your thoughts on this report—come to the office for a few mins?”

The more substantive messages, the ones where they complained to one another about the irritations of daily life, or shared brief moments of happiness, were so long ago at this point that Myka’s phone has long since deleted them.

She thinks about texting Helena now. She wonders who has the number that used to be Helena’s.  She knows that the Helena she misses, in this moment, is not the real Helena, the one who is probably bronzed again, but the old one, the imaginary one, who managed to convince Myka that a friend—a tether, a person to ease the transition into this new world—was all she sought from her.

Myka navigates away from that contact screen and drops the phone onto her stomach.

Over the next few days and weeks, Myka intends, over and over again, to invite Gabi for a hike or a drink or a coffee, just to hang out. But she can’t quite bring herself to press the call button, or to hit “send” on those texts.

Gabi apparently can’t either.


	15. The Invisible Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why am I here?” Helena asks.
> 
> “Because I’m going to need your help,” Irene replies.
> 
> “Help? How can I help you with anything like this?”
> 
> Irene smiles, ever so slightly, more with her eyes than her mouth. “Myka,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am fond of including nods to my favorite fics in my fics. In this chapter, I've given Christina's murderers the same names that Scotchplaid uses in her absolutely incredible fic [Reset](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10568459/1/Reset) which you should all be reading if you aren't yet. Actually, you should be reading all of her fics if you aren't reading them yet--most of them are only on Fanfiction at this point, not AO3. Thanks, Scotchplaid, for the permission--and for your awesome writing!
> 
> I thought about breaking this chapter in half in the interest of more frequent shorter chapters (heh) but I couldn't find a way to do it that didn't feel forced. So you get the whole thing all at once.
> 
> As I've mentioned before, my conversational French is decent but my period French is non-existent so apologies and feedback welcome from anyone who knows more about that than I do.

"Oh, bollocks," Wolly groans, as his eyes scan down the telegrammed list, standing in the foyer of the Gendarmerie.

Charles is reading the list, too, leaning over Wolly's shoulder, but the names of things listed are too bizarre, too senseless for him to understand. "What?" he asks.

"She's got Qing Shih’s telescope," Wolly says.

Charles inhales deeply through his nose, and out again through his mouth, like Helena taught him to do when they were children and they were frustrated. "What of that?" he asks.

"It takes you to the thing you most want to find," Wolly says.

Charles blinks, and blinks again, and then curses loudly. It's only after the word escapes that he realizes he accidentally cursed in French, and that there are officers everywhere glaring at him.

"What's the downside?" Charles asks. "You said they always have one."

"It draws out an impulse to conquer with violence, especially toward any man who has done harm to a woman," Wolly says. "And she knows that, by the way. She's done this in full consciousness."

"Full consciousness! She hasn't had full consciousness in months, man!" Charles' fingers are driven through his hair but he doesn't care, can't bring himself to care at all. "All right," he says. "We know the police said that there was evidence that two people had made it into the house, so she needs to find two people, not just one. Perhaps that will give us a little more time. We must either find her, or find the killers, before she finds the killers. Can we do that?"

Wolly sighs. "With no leads, when she's got an arsenal of artifacts?" Wolly shakes his head. "I don't reasonably see how we can. But I do have one item that will help us to limit how far behind her we fall, at least."

"All right," Charles says. "That's something—"

But Wolly is walking away to speak to a clerk sitting at the counter. "J'ai besoin d'une carte de la ville," he says. _I need a map of the city_ , and for heaven's sake they don't need a map, Charles knows his way around quite well following the weeks spent here. "Wolly—"

Wolly holds up a hand to silence him, and Charles fails to contain his growl of frustration.

Map in hand, Wolly taps his hat into place and ventures toward the door. "I'm hungry," he says. "Let's find a café, shall we?"

Hungry? Helena is armed, missing, and hell-bent on vengeance and Wolly wants to find a _caf_ _é?_ "Wolcott—"

"Trust me, Charles," Wolly says. "Come on."

 

\\\

 

Poule is not expecting these knocks at the door, at this hour. It's late. His wife is rocking the baby near the hearth, and he should go to bed, soon, to be up in time for work down on the river.

He is certainly not expecting a woman, one with strange clothing and strange, detached eyes, to be standing there.

"Si vous cherchez de la charité, je n'ai rien à vous donner, Madame," he says, and moves to close the door _. If you_ _’re looking for charity, don't have anything to give you, Ma_ _’am._

"Attendez,” she says, _Wait_ , her arm flying out to catch the door before it shuts. Her hand pulls forward, out of her sleeve, and she is wearing a bracelet, a simple thing of tarnished silver, but somehow it is the most beautiful bracelet Poule has ever seen.  She must be a truly remarkable woman, to own such a bracelet. A wonderful woman, a captivating woman.

"Oui, madame?" he asks. _Yes, ma'am?_

"J'ai besoin de votre aide," she says, and how can he say no to a request for help from a woman in possession of such a remarkable bracelet? Of course he'll help her.

"Très bien," he says, _very well_. He calls back into the house, yells to his wife that he needs to venture out but he'll be back when he can, and then pulls the door closed behind him. "Comment puis-je vous aider?" _How can I help you?_

"Venez avec moi et je vous montrerai tout, " she says, _come with me and I'll show you everything._

Poule shrugs, and nods, and follows her into the cab.

Once they're seated, the woman opens her strange bag and removes a… telescope? How strange a thing, he thinks, to carry in the middle of Paris, but the hand that grips the telescope is the one that wears that most remarkable, that most beautiful bracelet, and surely, he thinks, she must have her reasons for carrying it. She holds it to her eye and turns left, then right, as though seeking something through it, and stops with it angled just to the southeast of them.

"Madame?" he asks, but she holds up her hand—that perfect hand—and he knows she wishes him silent. She leans out the door and says something unintelliglble to the driver.

A sense of foreboding, of unease, rises in Poule's gut the closer they come to Lebecque's house. They haven't seen one another, Lebecque and he, since July. Since the incident with the little girl.

Poule thinks about leaving: about disembarking from this carriage and beginning the long walk back home, back to where his wife is doing her best to care for their sickly child.

But that bracelet—how can he walk away from a woman with such a remarkable bracelet?

Poule is only moderately annoyed when this woman invites LeBecque into the carriage with them, because to make space she slides closer, her body pressed alongside his. When they’re boarded the driver leans back and says, “ _V_ _ôtre destination, s_ _’il-vous pla_ _ît?_ ” and Poule would like to know that, too, where they’re going, but when the woman leans forward and says, “ _N_ _’importe o_ _ù, pour le moment_ ,” with fingers stroking the burnished polish of that bracelet, the driver coughs, and nods, and seems content to pull away from the curb and drive aimlessly through the city.

 _“_ Messieurs,” the woman says, _Gentlemen_. She leans forward, to the bag at her feet, and opens it, withdrawing a scrap of cloth, holding it out in front of her, on her palm, like a gift, alongside that beautiful silver bracelet. _“_ Voyez, comme c’est doux.” _Look, how soft it is._

Poule reaches across and trails his fingers along the surface of the fabric, because how can he not, on that hand, near that bracelet? Lebecque does the same.

“C’est bien doux _,_ _”_ Lebecque says, and Poule nods, because yes, he agrees, it’s very soft.

The woman smiles, and tips her head, and closes her hand around the fabric. Poule feels the closing of that hand around his person, as though his ribs have tightened, just slightly, around his lungs.

“Le 14 Juillet,” the woman says, “dans la maisonette sur la Rive Gauche. Dites-moi ce qui est passé.” _The 14 th of July, in the little house on the Left Bank. Tell me what happened._

Poule swallows, and he hears Lebecque do the same. He shouldn’t—he knows he shouldn’t—but—

“Mon fils était malade _,_ _”_ Poule hears Lebecque say, and yes, that’s true, yes, Lebecque’s son was sick then. He was sick and that’s why they… Lebecque swallows, swallows, swallows against the pressure in his chest, the urge to say more.

“Desolée _,_ _”_ the woman says, _I'm sorry to hear that_ , and then her hand clenches tighter around the cloth and this time Poule feels the air shoved out of his lungs when his ribs squeeze, again, around his chest, until he says, “On cherchait des trucs de valeur, de l’or, de l’argent. C’est tout. Mais—mais _—“ We were looking for trinkets of value, gold, silver. That's all. But_ _—but_ _—_ His chest feels tighter now, tighter with every word, until he claws at the button at his collar to loosen it, because he knows that the fact that they were looking for silver and gold isn’t what this woman is asking about and even though he wants nothing less than to tell her, he also wants nothing _more_ than to tell her—

“Il-y-avait une petite fille _,_ _”_ Lebecque says, and then Poule feels some relief, because yes, the girl. Surely what this woman wants to hear is about the little girl.

“C'était par accident qu'on l'a tuée," Poule says. _It was by accident that we killed her_.

"Par accident," the woman repeats. Her hand tightens around the cloth but Poule's chest doesn't tighten this time. He feels lighter for having said it.

The woman swallows ever and over, besides him. Her wrist comes out and he sees, again, that beautiful bracelet of tarnished silver; he watches her fingers stroke it.

"Dites-moi," she says, "connaissez-vous quelque-part out nous pouvons nous catcher pour un temps? Our il-y-à de l'espace – peut-être un bâtiment abandonné?" _Tell me, do you know somewhere where we could hide for awhile? Where there's space, perhaps an abandoned building?_

Poule thinks for a moment. Well, there's the warehouse by the river docks, the one with the caved roof, and nobody will be there for awhile because tomorrow is Sunday.

He suggests it. Across the carriage, he sees Lebecque agree.

" _Bien_ ," she says, and tips her chin toward the driver. Poule leans forward and provides the address.

 

//

 

Charles is quite certain he's panicking. This feeling that his heart might beat out of his chest, that his skin is damp, that he can't possibly sit still, that he might sob like a child at any instant—that's panic, is it not?

"Sit still, man," Wolly bellows, and Charles never would have believed that Wolly _could_ bellow, soft-spoken as he tends to be.

They are sharing a table at a café. Wolly has a map of Paris spread out before him. Hidden beneath it is, he explained, a map that belonged to an unknown pirate from several centuries earlier—one who had been the scourge of the Warehouse at the time because his map indicates, with a two-hour delay, where artifacts have been in use on any map superimposed over it.

"The bloody thing isn't showing us anything," Charles exclaims. "Hasn't it been two hours yet? It must be defective."

"It's not defective," Wolly says. "Be patient. It's all we have."

"I need another coffee," Charles frets.

"You absolutely do not," Wolly says. He reaches across the table to rest a firm hand on Charles' shuddering shoulder. "Water. Or a glass of wine. Or a cigarette, for heaven's sake, but no more coffee—there!"

On the map, a black dot appears on a nondescript Rive-Gauche street corner. "Artifact,” he says.

Charles hastily slams coin on the table, more than the cost of their meal, and heads for the door faster than Wolly can gather his things.

 

//

 

Part of the warehouse's roof caved in a few weeks previously due to rotten beams, so its cargo has been largely shipped out, stacks of repair materials the only things remaining. The woman had dismissed the driver and now leads Poule and Lebecque inside. It's late enough now, few enough fires burning in city hearths, that they can see stars through the hole in the roof above them.

"This will do nicely," the woman says, and for a moment Poule wonders why she spoke a different language—was it English?

"Venez," she says, _Come,_ waving them along with the hand above that beautiful braceletted wrist. They stop before a large, wooden support beam, and she positions both Poule and Lebecque so that their backs are to it, and they face opposite walls. They wait, patiently, while the woman opens her bag and, with exaggerated care, lifts a rope—a rigging rope, Poule can tell from having worked on ships as a youth—by its wooden hinge. Without warning she hurls it at them, at Poule and Lebecque and the post, and it must have been a truly a remarkable throw to have bound them so quickly and securely where they stand (but surely a woman with such a remarkable bracelet must have an enormous wealth of skills and talents!).

In the corner of his eye, Poule sees her reach into the bag again. She retrieves some kind of metal canister and opens it. From her pocket, she pulls the small piece of soft cloth from the carriage and drops it in; he doesn't expect the explosion of sparks that erupt. Then she reaches for the clasp of the bracelet (why would anyone remove such a remarkable bracelet?), unfastens it, and drops it in as well; the sparks that erupt are even greater, and—

What the devil is he doing, tied to a beam in an abandoned warehouse?

The woman is standing, now, and facing him. In her hand she holds a long, sharp-looking, knife.

"Madame," he says, "Écoutez-moi, a propos de la fillette--" _Listen, about the little girl_ , he says. What on earth possessed them to talk about the girl, back in the carriage? Lebecque and he had sworn never to speak of it, never to acknowledge it had happened.

"Silence," the woman says. "Vous deux, vous m’avez déja dit ce que j’avais besoin d’entendre.” _You two, you_ _’ve already told me what I needed to hear._

Poule can't tear his eyes from the knife, glinting in the thin moonlight that slips in through the hole in the roof.

"Qu’es-ce que vous allez faire avec ça?" He asks. _What are you going to do with that?_

The woman smirks. “Pas ce que tu penses,” she replies. _Not what you think_.

She steps in front of him now, holding the knife up between them, dangling between two of her fingers, point-down. It’s close to his face, too close; he knows if she drops it, it will impale his foot. Without thinking he struggles, pulls against the rope and feels it squeeze impossibly tighter, his ankles pulling snugger against the beam behind him, one hand being tugged back until his palm rests against the edge of Lebecque’s fingers.

“Lebecque—“ Poule says, unable to keep his voice from shaking, because this woman is still dangling the sharp knife—

“La ferme,” Lebecque growls. _Shut up_.

The woman is silent now, one eyebrow higher than the other. She cocks her head, smiles a little, and with a flick of her wrist throws the knife downward and Poule screams, screams loudly, screams before he realizes that the knife has penetrated the toe of his boot, just barely touching the tip of his toe, but without breaking his skin.

“Monsieur Poule,” the woman says, “On dirait meme que tu écries come une fillette, non _?_ _” One might say that you scream like a little girl, no?_

Poule is breathing as hard as he can against the grip of the rope, his heart-rate rising like the last grains of sand falling through an hourglass. If he strains his eyes downward he can just barely catch the shine of the wobbly knife protruding from his boot.

The woman returns to her bag, now, and pulls out—a key? A key, an unusual one, old-fashioned but different form the old keys he’s seen before, like it wasn’t made here in Paris. And then she walks around behind him, to Lebecque, outside of Poule’s line of sight.

(He doesn’t see that she tucks the key against Lebecque’s forehead, between the rope binding him and his skin.)

In the corner of his eye, he sees her go, again, to her bag, and this time, she removes—

Dear God. A pistol. The strangest-looking pistol he has ever seen, but a pistol nonetheless.

He sees her flip a small switch on one side, and the gun begins to hum, vibrating like a newly-lit gas lamp, but more powerfully.

He sees her aim that pistol at the knife protruding from his boot.

“Je pense que j’aimerai t’entendre crier encore une fois,” she says. _I think I_ _’d like to hear you scream again._

And then all he can feel is the most excruciating pain.

 

//

 

Wolly can smell something foul before he enters the warehouse, as though someone were cooking rotten meat. In his peripheral vision, he sees Charles pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and cupping it over his nose and mouth.

“Do not touch the artifacts,” Wolly says quietly. “You can go to her, but do your best to touch nothing in the room. Not a single object, until I’ve identified which ones are dangerous.”

“By all means, take your blasted objects. I’m here for my sister.”

Wolly sighs and shakes his head, bemused. “You always are, aren’t you?”

 

//

 

Charles will wonder why Wolly didn’t fully prepare him for what they might find in that warehouse.

He will wonder if it’s because even Wolly couldn’t have predicted it.

Helena, disheveled, her hair falling out of its knot, one strange-looking pistol on the ground near her feet, another in her hand.

Two… men, he supposes, if they could still be called such, every inch of their skins replaced with bleeding, oozing blisters, flesh as scorched as if it had been laid over a fire, their clothes blackened and torn, bound with thick, coiling rope to a support beam.

“Helena,” he says, and she wheels around like a captured animal, eyes wide and black, even in the darkness of the room.

“Charles?” she says quietly, so quietly. The pistol clatters to the floor. “Charles, I—I’ve—“ She takes a halting step toward him, and then another. He dives toward her as she stumbles, and when he catches her she is stiff but unresistant as they both go to the floor, he on his knees and she into his lap.

“They killed her,” she says, as though it were a discovery, as though it’s new news to her. "They killed Christina."

“All right,” Charles says.

"They killed her, so I hurt them." Her tone brooks the naïve innocence of a child, stating a simple fact without awareness of context or consequence, of two men making revolting, guttural noises not twenty feet away.

And then, with no warning, she is sobbing, turning her face into his shoulder and grasping his lapel with one hand.

“I don’t feel any better,” she gasps wetly. “I don’t—I don’t feel any—“

“I know,” Charles says. “I know.”

Overtop of her head, Charles sees Wolly wet the binding rope with an unusual liquid and it releases, as if of its own volition, and falls to the floor. The two bodies it restrained fall heavily to the ground, soft, animal grunts gasping from their chests.

“I'll notify the Gendarmerie from the ferry terminal,” Wolly says. "But for now—I can't quite bring myself to care to help them."

There is a bag, like a doctor’s satchel, on the floor. Charles watches Wolly open it and begin dropping things in; they disappear, as if by magic. That enormous rope. The pistols. A large knife. Something too small for Charles to identify from this distance: it fits in the palm of Wolly’s hand.

Helena still shudders against him, her breath halting.

 Charles watches Wolly’s arm disappear into the bag, and emerge holding a woman’s silver bracelet, simple, but even from here, strikingly beautiful.

Wolly opens it and closes it over his own wrist—and it’s remarkable, incredible really, how this simple bracelet enhances his entire appearance, and makes it impossible for Charles to look away.

Wolly holds the bag in one hand and holds the other, with the beautiful bracelet, out toward Helena as he walks to stand over them. “Come on,” he says. Eyes wide, Helena grasps his outstretched hand and rises to her feet. Charles follows.

“Let’s go,” Wolly says. “Quickly.”

On the street, Wolly raises his braceletted hand and flags down a fruit salesman, hauling his goods to the market before it opens in a few hours’ time. He agrees to take them to the ferry terminal.

“But the hotel—” Charles says, but Wolly stops him with a flick of that hand, the bracelet below it.

“Your sister has all but murdered two men, Charles. We must return to English soil as quickly as possible.”

Helena is silent and unusually pliable through this entire process, following quietly a half-step behind Charles like a chastened puppy.

Only once they’re on the morning ferry does Wolly slip off the bracelet. He wraps it in a bold purple handkerchief and Charles blinks, wonders how on earth they've come here, how they've come to be here, on this boat. He remembers the abandoned warehouse, the smell like rotten meat. Helena collapsing against him.

He turns his head to look at her and she blinks, too, first at the space around her, and then down at her own hands—she holds them in front of her like foreign objects—and then at Wolly.

"You used the bracelet on us," she says, accusingly.

Wolly purses his lips at her. "And thanks to that, you're here, on this boat, quickly and quietly, and not in a Gendarmerie holding cell awaiting a trial and probable hanging."

Helena surges to her feet, unsteady but still too quick for Charles, faced with rising seasickness, to stop her. She lunges for Wolly and in a few quick moves has pushed him to the ground his arm pinned behind him. Around them, travelers stumble away from the commotion; Charles hears a few men shout in English and French, _stop it_ and _what the devil?_ and variants thereof, and then those voices die down upon the sight of a woman overpowering a full-grown man.

"What if I wanted to hang," she growls at Wolly, crouched over him like a gargoyle.

Charles has risen to wobbly feet. He takes a step toward her, and then another. "Helena."

She looks up at him, but he sees her grip tighten on Wolly's wrist, on his shoulder. "Agent Wells," Wolly is saying breathlessly, his lungs tight under the pressure of her knee, "HG. Please."

"What if I wanted to hang," she says again, her voice cracking. Charles puts a tentative hand on her shoulder. He crouches and coaxes her to loosen her grip on Wolly's forearm. She shudders once, twice, and then rises swiftly and clumsily to her feet, shoving Charles easily onto his behind.

"To hell with you," she says to him. Then, louder, "to hell with both of you!"

Charles blinks up at her. There is a crowd staring at them, eyeing Helena like a sideshow freak. "

Charles hears Wolly rise to his feet. Distantly, he hears him clear the crowd – _the show's over, move along_ —and the shuffle of people walking away.

"I've seen hell," Charles says. "I've seen it, and you've lived it, and neither of us could bear it so I took responsibility for you, for your actions, to get you out of it. Or have you forgotten that?"

Helena gazes at him. Her face doesn't change but her rage makes it stiffen, it emanates like steam from her pores. "If I’m a burden, Charles, feel free to send me back. I haven't a child to raise anymore, after all."

She spins on her heel and has vanished into the crowd before Charles can gather his wits to respond. "Helena," he says, finally, as he struggles to clamber to his feet just as the boat pitches mightily to one side. "Helena!" he says, again, but the boat is crowded, and she's gone.

Wolly steps up and offers his hand to steady Charles as he stands. "Let her go," Wolly says. "It's a boat. She can't go far. We'll give her some time to herself and then find her before we dock."

Charles sighs. Helena is his only family. He lost his parents when he chose to stand by her, all those years ago. And, of course, he lost Christina, his niece and the brightest star in his sky. One day, God willing, he'll have a wife and children of his own, but now, Helena is all he has for kin.

"We have to help her, Wolly," Charles says. "Surely, in your magical Warehouse, there's something that can help her?"

But Wolly only quirks a lip sadly and shrugs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Irene knows, has known since the beginning, what it would probably take to bring Myka back.

Time is the first ingredient. Time to reboot, time to process her regrets and frustration in an environment where she won't be putting anyone else at risk.

The second ingredient is H.G. Wells.

It isn't because they were friends, though that helps. Pete is Myka's friend—Pete is Myka's much _better_ friend. And that's why his words won't help: she feels indebted to him, she feels responsible for him, she looks at him and sees everything she put on the line.

Helena Wells is the adversary. She is everything that almost defeated Myka ( _did_ defeat her, in Myka's own mind, if not in anyone else's). And she is subdued, thanks in no small part to Myka's ability to defuse the situation.

(Helena Wells is also the nearest thing that exists to an artifact in human form: unpredictable, imbued with, somehow, a power of influence that seems too great to be contained within a single human body. Irene knows this profoundly. Irene remembers Sophie, and swallows against the depth of that knowledge.)

Irene sits in her Victorian-styled living room, wearing her skirt and blouse from the day but her jacket is left to hang in the closet, her feet tucked into a pair of house slippers. Her evening mug of tea sits on a coaster on the coffee table. She had deliberated over the tea (too cruel?) but decided that Helena needed to learn to accept that there are things she will want but be unable to have in her current state.

Beside her teacup sits Helena’s orb. Irene sips from that cup—chamomile, nothing better of an evening—and sets it back on its coaster, and then, with a steadiness which, she thinks, belies the nervousness she feels about this particular encounter, she activates the Janus Coin.

The orb is an exceptionally sensitive piece of equipment, scanning its immediate surroundings for a space with open floor, so that the projection doesn’t appear with legs disappearing into a sofa cushion. Helena appears in the floor space opposite the coffee table, in front of the window. The curtains are drawn closed but the light from the streetlamp outside cuts between and around them; Irene is impressed with the density of Helena’s image, that she cannot see the light through her.

Helena blinks and looks around, puzzled, before her gaze settles: “Irene.” Her arms cross around herself and she swallows once.

Irene inclines her head. “Helena.”

Helena swallows again and Irene sees her hands tighten against each opposite elbow before she tosses her head, settling her hair between her shoulderblades. “You—you were saying?” Helena says, and if Irene hadn’t known her for so long she might have been fooled by the illusion of nonchalance.

“I was not,” Irene says. She picks up her teacup again, sips from it, and holds it in front of her as she rests against the back of the sofa.

Helena’s mouth opens and closes again, and one hand travels from her biceps to push her hair back, unnecessarily, from her face. “I fear I’m—I’m somewhat disoriented, Irene. I don’t know where—or how…“

“My home,” Irene replies. “And as for the how: suffice it to say that you aren’t really here.”

“I’m not really—what do you mean, I’m not really here?”

Irene leans forward and sets her teacup down on the polished stone coaster. Then she stands, slowly, and makes her way around the coffee table while Helena watches. When they are face-to-face, Irene holds out her hand, palm up, between them. Helena’s eyes move from Irene’s face to that pale, dry palm, and back again.

Irene can see Helena’s shoulders rising and falling with increasing speed, increasing pressure, but there is no breath, of course. No real breath, only the facsimile of it, as Helena reaches out with one hand and lowers it, palm-down, until their hands should touch, palm-to-palm. But they don’t: Helena’s hand continues downward, its image bending and collapsing as it pushes through Irene’s flesh.

For a long moment there is only the sound of Helena’s shaky, heavy breathing, and then, quietly, so quietly that Irene can barely hear it, the breaths form into shadows of words, the word “no,” repeated once, and again, and again. Then Helena lifts her hand and drops it through Irene’s again, and again, and she’s saying “No” louder now, and louder still; she’s stumbling back into the wingback chair, and then through that chair, and then she runs forward through it again; she veers and keeps running forward, through the second wingback alongside the first, through the reading lamp and endtable beside it, half-immersed into the wall and then the fireplace (one leg appearing to drop mysteriously down from the chimney), through the sofa, the coffee table, through Irene’s body fully, and the whole time she is crying out, sometimes the word “no,” sometimes just a desperate sound between a groan and a scream, and she’s just getting more and more frantic, reaching for things, for objects, any of them, anywhere. In moments Irene can see her eyes, see how wide they are, the whites showing all the way around her irises. She stands still, as still as she can, and does her best to exude calm but this, the sight of Helena flinging herself around like a caged, maddened animal, is testing her well-tried limits.  Helena finally falls to her knees on the hardwood floor, and Irene experiences a flash of cognitive dissonance as this dramatic, devastated action is soundless, because there is no actual impact to resonate.

Helena has her head bent forward, her hands pushed into her hair, and she’s rocking back and forth minutely. Irene imagines her as Sophie had described her in Bethlem: in a grey smock dress, hair in disarray, rocking much like this. Helena’s hands drop from her hair and begin to rub against one another, palm to palm. And then her fingers curl and Irene can see faint white trails appearing in the skin as Helena uses the fingernails of one hand to scratch at the skin of the opposite one, over and over again.

“I can feel this,” Helena says, and Irene can’t read the tone, whether it is wonder or sadness or anger. “I am not here. How can I feel this?”

 _Proprioception_ , Irene thinks, but she knows that’s not what Helena wants or needs to hear. Carefully, Irene lowers herself to the ground before the maddened muttering creature that Helena has become. She has the instinct to reach out to her, but suppresses it before she can make the mistake of sending her hands through Helena’s devastated image.

“Helena,” she says. “Helena.”

Helena stops scratching at herself and looks up at Irene with bloodshot eyes.

“What have you done to me,” she says. It is more a statement than a question.

“Is it not better than the bronze?” Irene asks.

“Is it better to have body without presence, or presence without body?” Helena retorts.

Helena’s hands are resting on her bent knees, now. She and Irene sit quietly, sharing that presence, each other’s presence, in Irene’s dark living room.

“Why am I here?” Helena asks.

“Because I’m going to need your help,” Irene replies.

“Help? How can I help you with anything like this?”

Irene smiles, ever so slightly, more with her eyes than her mouth. “Myka,” she says.

Helena looks up at that, eyes wide but hard, and Irene is suddenly very grateful that Helena is not incarnate in front of her. “What about her?” she asks, harshly.

“She left the Warehouse.”

Helena barks a dry laugh. “And she is better for it,” she says.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she’s a good person, Irene.”

“And I assume you would prefer we entrusted the power Warehouse to someone… _less_ good, then? Someone more… corruptible?”

Helena’s gaze doesn’t soften, exactly, but it changes from the barely-contained mania of a caged tiger to something sharper, more clearly directed at Irene herself. Helena stands and walks silently away, three steps to the end of the range of her projection, and turns her back.

“That was a low blow, Irene,” Helena says.

“You know that Myka is good for the Warehouse.” Irene rises slowly to her feet.

“I don’t care that she’s good for the Warehouse,” Helena throws back, over her shoulder. “The Warehouse isn’t good for her.”

Irene walks placidly over to the sofa and picks up her now-cooled tea. She takes a sip. “Are you certain?”

Helena laughs a sad, despondent laugh, and drops her head back. “Caturanga used to say that the Warehouse—“

“—changes people,” Irene says. “I know.”

“I know you never thought well of me, but I was good, once,” Helena says quietly. “Before the Warehouse.”

“You were good before the Warehouse. You were good before Bedlam.” The sound of the word “Bedlam” slides slick off Irene’s tongue, that old North London accent surfacing from beneath the adaptation and change that her speech patterns have undergone in the century since she moved to America. It’s an out-of-time feeling, improper in its familiarity, as though she were being asked to wear an old Victorian frock down the streets of Univille. “You were good when you had Christina, too.” She continues. “Unstable, perhaps, but good. Sophie knew it.”

“Sophie always had unwarranted faith in me.”

“She had faith in you. Were she here right now, she wouldn’t call it unwarranted.”

Helena shakes her head and drops it lower, so that her chin nearly brushes her chest. “I don’t know how you can say that to me.”

“She saw people differently than you or I. You know that. She saw them better,” Irene says.

Helena scoffs. “Then she should have known to kill me.”

“Helena—”

“She should have put me down like a rabid dog before I could attack anyone I loved.”

“She would have.”

Now Helena wheels, eyes accusatory, as though she can’t believe that Irene would suggest something so horrid, or that Sophie would do something so violent, even though she, herself, had just suggested the same thought.

“If she’d seen something that needed to die, she would have killed you herself,” Irene says.

“Then she was blind,” Helena spits.

“Or she saw something worth saving.”

“Listen to me, Irene,” Helena says, and she can cut a menacing figure, even like this, without a body. She stalks closer, and closer still, and says, “Whatever artifact is doing this to me? I want you to neutralize it.”

“Leena sees it too,” Irene says.

“Or euthanize my body, wherever it is, that it might take my consciousness with it.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Helena!”

Irene does not often raise her voice: in more than a century of cultivating the capacity to influence people, she does not generally find that shouting is an effective way to do anything more than draw attention. But she shouted that, because attention was what she wanted, and she got it, Helena freezing, clutching at her locket, mouth slightly agape, and, apparently, dumbfounded.

Irene rises placidly to her feet again, and, walking slowly toward Helena’s image, says, “You have always been, by far, the most solipsistic person I have ever known. ‘I’m good. I’m bad. I’m suffering. I’m evil. I’m beyond redemption.’ _Your_ needs, _your_ wants, _your_ emotions, _your_ feelings. And those things do matter: far be it for me to tell you to deny your own importance. But you are not _all_ that matters, and your opinion is not the only one that matters about anything. Including you.”

Helena’s mouth closes but her eyes remain wide, like those of a child witnessing something wondrous or devastating.

“You’re not a bad person, Helena," Irene says. "I don’t need the Sight to see it, though I won’t pretend I don’t appreciate that Leena can confirm what I’ve said. You’re not bad, but you’re self-absorbed.”

“I am most cer—“

“You refer your anger and sadness and rage onto everything around you, Helena, so you hurt others in attempt to purify yourself,” Irene presses on. “But it doesn’t work, because beneath it all, you’re not somebody who finds pleasure or relief in the suffering of others.”

“Irene.”

“You want the people you care about to be happy.”

Helena’s shoulders drop. “That’s quite the presumption for you to make.”

“You couldn’t kill her.”

“Irene—“ Louder now.

“She put herself between you and the effects of your rage and your rage was not the stronger of the two, Helena.”

Helena’s wide eyes soften, her gaze dropping, her hand slipping under her shirt to play with her locket. “She is a strong woman,” she says.

Irene tips her head in agreement. “She is formidable, when she wants to be. And principled. But it was neither _her_ strength nor _her_ principles that stopped _you_.”

A subtle shudder passes through Helena’s image. She drops her locket and pulls her fingers through her hair, tossing it into place over her shoulders as a lion might settle its mane. “It was neither my strength nor my principles that stopped me, either.”

Irene knows this. Irene has known Helena for long enough to read this unfamiliar emotion, the asymmetrical state that she’s kept, with reference to Ms. Bering, since quite some time before Egypt.

“Where is she?” Helena asks.

“Working in her father’s bookshop in Colorado Springs.”

Helena laughs, a mirthless chuckle. “Her father.”

“Yes.”

She sighs. “What do you need me to do?”

Irene smiles quietly. “Talk to her. When the time is right.”

“Why me? Why not Pete, or even Claudia?”

“They’ve tried. She fears her responsibility to them. They remind her of the ways she feels she’s failed. You’ll remind her of the ways she’s been successful. And—despite everything—I suspect your opinion matters to her.”

“Despite everything,” Helena echoes.

A silence holds between them. Irene lets it sit.

“Shall I see her like this?” Helena eventually asks, gesturing vaguely down herself, as though pointing out disheveled clothing instead of her incorporeal state.

“Yes,” Irene says. “I’ll bring you to her.”

Irene expects anger, frustration, resistance to that point—but what she sees is a sagging of relief, and a quiet nod.

“Very well,” Helena says, “I’ll do it.”

 

//

 

Myka feels a swelling, a warmth in her chest, at seeing Pete again, at chasing an artifact again, and she feels pretty proud of how well she succeeds at swallowing down her jealousy when she meets Steve.

If only Gabi (or, for that matter, Tracy) could see her now.

And she wishes she could find a way to have him in her life again—something easier, something lower-pressure, something that doesn't involve having to have his life in her hands, something that doesn't involve having the world in her hands.

She doesn't want him as a lover, not even a little bit, despite what Gabi or Tracy might think, but when she watches him mouth _thank you_ to her before they part ways again, she feels like he's taken something vital from her—or maybe that she's left something vital with him.

But she still feels like she'd rather give up a piece of herself for him, for Claudia and Leena and Artie, than take it back just to put them all in jeopardy again.

A day later: it’s a familiar illusion for Myka to see Helena, but not really _see_ Helena. Or, perhaps, not really see _Helena_.

The pattern of stress is important in that sentence.

Myka wonders if she has ever, truly, seen _Helena_ , as opposed to H.G. Wells, open-collared, quick-witted, fast-talking Schroedinger’s Casanova.

In retrospect, Myka will think that she should have noticed earlier. She should have noticed that Helena’s shirt was rumpled, like she’d slept in it, but her face pale and drawn as though she hadn’t slept much. But the telling point were her hands: thin, as always, and pale, but clean, without the ink-stains that darkened the shadows of her knuckles and fingernails as though someone had drawn cross-hatching to make them darker and bring her into deeper relief.

She will think, in retrospect, about how telling it is that she didn’t notice these things—she who notices everything, whose gift and curse is to never really be able to forget. She will think about how she could reflect philosophically upon the differences between embodiment and presence, between location and place.

She could think about Dostoyevsky, about how there’s got to be a one-dollar Penguin Classic version of _The Double_ somewhere on these shelves and maybe it’s time for a re-read.

But instead, she will, that night, think about the way it had felt for her hand to disrupt Helena’s image, the way that image—not quite a hologram or a projection, but more tactile than that, from the way Helena had gasped at it, the way the pixels scattered at Myka's touch and then snapped back together as though magnetically drawn—had raised the fine hairs on her hand, a feeling like the one that comes from holding a latex balloon over your forearm after having rubbed it against the carpet to generate static friction. She’ll think about the electricity that Helena had made her feel, back before… everything, and she’ll wonder if their two bodies are made up of ions that must either attract or repel but can never be at rest while near one another.

She will be lying in bed, later, when she thinks about the contrast between this subdued Helena, this more-than-slightly humiliated Helena, who has been so thoroughly defeated that she doesn't even know how she's been contained, this Helena who figured out how to transport consciousness through time but can't figure out how Mrs. Frederic has been able to transport hers through space.

Myka will berate herself for feeling a twinge of sympathy for how this phenomenal force, this person who always seemed more than she was, has been reduced to a shell of herself.

That’s when she’ll realize that somehow, perhaps by accident, she’s forgiven Helena for what she did.

It’s what will make her realize that, perhaps, she can forgive herself.

 

//

 

Irene violates protocol: when she returns to South Dakota, she does not immediately return H.G. Wells's orb to the Vault.

She takes it home with her, and activates it, once again, in the quiet of her living room. Helena materializes, again, between the coffee table and the wingback chair.

It's an unusual look for Helena: she is not proud, with her shoulders thrown back and her chin lifted. No: she looks like she could fold in on herself, her shoulders reaching toward one another across her chest, her hands curled claw-like against her thighs.

She blinks, like a person adjusting to bright lights after darkness, even though the room is lit only with a single low-watt bulb.

"How long has it been?" she asks.

"About eight hours. It's the same day, but in the evening."

When Helena speaks it's as though the pause, to hear Irene's answer, was only an extended breath, not intentional silence imbued with listening. She goes on: "Because I can't really tell, you know. Wherever I am, I mean, I can't tell the time. And how. It passes."

 "I would assume as much," Irene says.

Then she waits. And waits.

"Will she return to the Warehouse?" Helena eventually asks.

"I don't know," Irene answers. "I think so. Your presence affected her, I think for the better, in the long run."

"My presence," Helena echoes, quietly. Her curled fingers slide up until her arms are folded stiff across her chest.

It takes a little longer than Irene had expected, but still not long: a minute, maybe ninety seconds, before the illusion of Helena's body convulses once, and then twice, and then collapses to the thick carpet without disturbing any of its strands, and Helena is sobbing with the fervor of a frightened child. The images of her tears vaporize between her eyes and the floor but the sound resonates deep in Irene's gut, as though each cry is being forcefully pulled through an opening too small for it to comfortably fit.

"Get it out," Irene says. "There, now. Let it all out."

Helena's voice is wet and crackling, her throat clogged with phlegm: "She was so—she is so—" she sobs again. Later, when her heaving form has stilled, she manages to croak, "Do you think she might ever forgive me?"

Irene could say yes, to mollify this wretched illusion of a creature who will soon be re-deposited on the coin. Or she could say no, to punish this terrorist, this narrowly-averted mass-murderer.

She decides to be honest. "I don't know, Helena."

Helena's shoulders move with the illusion of breath. "I'll help," she says quietly. "If—if she needs me. If you need me. I'll help."

Irene already knows that Helena will help, of course. She's barely any say in the matter: she will only exist, in conscious state, when she is needed for consultation, and if she refuses such consultation, her consciousness would be left to rot on the coin.

But the simple fact that she offered—that matters.

"Will you tell her?" Helena asks.

"When you're needed, I'll tell her that you're available," Irene says.

Helena's fingers reach beneath her shirt for her locket. "No," she says. Amends, "I mean, yes. Tell her that. But tell her—would you tell her that I'm sorry?"

"I'm not the person who should be saying that to her."

"She wouldn't listen to me, I'm sure of it."

Irene reaches for the orb where it rests on the coffee table. Helena eyes it warily in he hands, as though it were a weapon. A grenade.

"She's listened to you once," Irene says. "Why not again?"

Helena inhales a deep breath and lets it out, again, shakily. Her eyes rest on the orb for a long moment, a series of breaths. She reaches for her locket, lifts her gaze to Irene's eyes, and she nods.

Irene watches her image pixelate and vanish.

 

//

 

Myka is taking inventory (of course), her father shelving new books a few feet away, when she says, “I’m thinking of taking my old job back. Maybe.”

The words seem to surprise her more than they surprise him—his eyebrow twitches, a little, and he says, “But?”

Myka looks over at him, eyebrows furrowed. “’But’?”

“You said ‘maybe,’” he says. “So what’s holding you back?”

Myka looks down at her clipboard, at the growing hand-written list of authors and titles that will be input into the online inventory system. She thinks of doing inventory back home, and how easily Claudia had updated the system so they could generate a list of artifacts from a particular sector and cross-reference it with the items on the shelves. So much easier, so much less likelihood of writer’s cramp.

She swallows. “The division where I worked with Pete—you remember Pete, right?”

Her dad nods.

“It does really, really important work, that division. Really important work.”

“In South Dakota?” He can’t quite contain the suspicion in his voice.

Surprising even herself, again, Myka laughs. “I know it’s hard to believe, but yeah.”

Her father clears his throat: a nervous tic. Myka recognizes it. She also recognizes the moment they’re in: she’s seeking his advice, and therefore, on some level, his approval, which is something he was always too quick to offer when she was a child, and something she’s never before requested.

He’s nervous, and she appreciates that he’s nervous, because it means that he’s trying to handle this the right way.

“If it’s important work, why wouldn’t you want to go back?” he asks. Then: “I guess there must be a reason why you left. I never did ask you why, but if you want to tell me…”

Myka turns to face him, leaning against the shelf with her shoulder. She nudges her glasses up on her nose with the corner of her clipboard, and then drops it down to her side and lets it rest against her thigh.

“I just… I made a bad decision,” she says. “And it put a lot of people at risk. A _lot_ of people. So it made me think I probably shouldn’t be in a position to put people at risk anymore.”

Myka’s father makes a sound. It takes her a minute to recognize it as a laugh—a quiet one, and brief, through tight lips that seem unusually unreluctant to curl up at the edges into something that almost looks like a smile.

"You don't want to put people at risk," he says, and shakes his head, like she's said something ridiculous.

Myka blinks, and blinks again. She looks down at her clipboard, at the lines on the page that form words, but that she somehow can't seem to read.

"Myka," her father says.

Myka swallows. She hears him sigh and grunt a little as he rises to height from where he's been crouching.

"Myka, if you're not standing between innocent people and dangerous risk, then it means that somebody else is doing it instead."

She thinks of Pete. Of the new guy, Steve.

"And," he continues, "I mean, I can't speak for your bosses or anything, but there's nobody else I'd trust more than I'd trust you to be my last line of defense."

Myka is blinking faster now, until a grey patch appears on the corner of the white sheet on the clipboard.

The next morning, her father helps her pack her car.

 

//

 

Pete knows he should be angry.

If he’s honest, he knows he will be, eventually, once everything sinks in, once he really starts to remember how annoying it is when Myka gives him grief over his dinner choices or acts like she doesn’t know who the Green Lantern is, and that’ll be when he’ll also remember, really remember, how much it sucked when she left.

But when he sees her, standing there in Artie’s office with her bag still over her shoulder like she’s not sure she’s allowed to put it down, well.

He doesn’t quite have a word for that emotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I just need to embrace the fact that life doesn't let me write as often as I'd like these days (though, fyi, I learned the hard way that dropbox's new in-app doc editor doesn't reliably save updated versions... and that after losing, like, 2000 words of work it's a whole lot easier to ignore the fic in frustration for two weeks than to rewrite everything.... Time for a new cloud storage solution for me, I think.)
> 
> Thanks, as always, to everyone for putting up with the long gaps between updates. I promise that I do update as often as I can and that, short of some devastating act of God or whatever, the fic will never be abandoned.
> 
> Look forward to some (holographic) B&W rebuilding in the next chapter.


	16. The Open Conspiracy (aka What Are We To Do With Our Lives?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Such temptation,” Helena murmurs, her hand stretching out and hovering above the top of the steering wheel, a tiny fraction of an inch from where her palm might touch.  
> “I need to know you’re not going to f*ck us over on this,” Myka says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both life and this chapter have been kicking my ass so at this point I'm just pushing the baby outta the nest. If there are any (more) egregious continuity errors, annoying typos or inconsistencies, etc., that you spot and want to point out, I will be eternally grateful and will do my best to fix. Feedback, both positive and constructive, means more to me than gold, you guys.
> 
> On the plus side: 1. long chapter, even by my standards, and 2. the draft was even longer -- part of it got pushed into the next chapter, which should take us to the end of season 3 in the present-day timeline, so I've got a significant chunk of that bad boy already written.
> 
> This chapter heavily assumes you've seen the episode 3..2..1.

“She’s not a monster, Rajinder,” Sophie says.

Her hands are curved over the back of Rajinder’s chair, which sits empty. As she breathes, she pulls her breath from the tips of her fingers, forcing them to stay light and relaxed, forcing herself not to let her knuckles pale from the tightness of her grip.

Standing opposite her, across the table, Rajinder sighs. “You don’t need to convince me, my dear.”

“I could tell if she were a monster. You know that.”

“That is not the point at issue here.” Sophie’s head snaps around; in her peripheral vision she sees Rajinder’s do the same. McGivens stands at the head of the table, hat in hand.

He sets his hat, with somewhat more force than necessary, atop the nearest stack of papers. “Were she a monster, you would have notified us of it at a much earlier date – isn’t that true, Mrs. Caturanga?”

Sophie’s gut tightens. It’s true, of course, but the presumption, the entitlement he expresses over the power that she has, as though the price for her gift is that she be owned by the Warehouse. She clenches her jaw and looks away.

McGivens sighs, beleaguered, and passes a palm over his head. “The question is whether she’s a danger,” he says, “and if her crime didn't prove it, her behavior since her return may well do the job."

Sophie has heard from Caturanga: Helena lashes out, verbally and sometimes physically, when anyone visits her for any reason, be it to bring her a meal or simply to say hello. She demands Wollcott, he says: she insists that he is the only one who may speak to her. But presumably Wollcott, like Charles, is spending his third day bedridden with a migraine following the removal of the babelfish he used in Paris.

Rajinder clears his throat. “With all due respect, sir, the fact that she took retribution against the murderers of her child, and that’s he now resents her imprisonment at the hands of her friends and colleagues, hardly seems a valid measure for her general behavior in all other contexts, let alone her efficacy as an agent of the Warehouse.” His voice is deferential but Sophie can hear the defensive edge in it. She has children and Rajinder does not, but she can identify with his paternal defensiveness.

McGivens hums quietly in agreement. “Her general behaviour is eccentric at worst, and her contributions to the endeavours of our institution are without question. But she has committed a gruesome crime, Caturanga, an due to the involvement of Artefacts we are unable to allow the conventional authorities to have jurisdiction here. A sensible person would recognize the need for due diligence on our part and would refrain from exacerbating the issue with rageful and entitled outbursts.”

Across the table, Rajinder removes his spectacles and pinches the bridge of his nose. “And so her fate is entrusted to the Regents,” he says, his voice thin with resignation.  

McGivens shrugs. “All of our fates are entrusted to the Regents, are they not? The fate of the planet is entrusted to the Regents.”

“None of the Regents are mothers, Mr. McGivens!”

Sophie is surprised by the sound of her own voice, but she is a Black woman from north London and life has taught her nothing if not to school her features when necessary. So she lifts her eyes to Rajinder—he looks at her with his eyes narrowed, nervous and questioning but not challenging, not yet.

“Mrs. Caturanga,” McGivens says, his sigh bordering on indulgent. Instantly, Sophie wants to reach across and throttle him. “I am wholeheartedly empathetic with your suffragette politics but this is not the place for them. Several of the Regents are fathers. I myself am a great-great grandfather—you know this.”

Sophie’s elbows hurt. She looks down and sees that, despite her best efforts, her fingers are tightened around the back of the chair, her knuckles white and prominent, and her elbows have locked her arms into straight, angry lines.

“Sophie.”

She looks up. Rajinder, with his spectacles back in place, is looking at her without condescension. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly: _not now_ , he says, without words. His colours bely the apparent serenity of his gaze.

The colours of the Caretaker are difficult to read, especially here, in the Warehouse: they bleed into one another, the two beings, lobes of a single sphere. When Sophie listens to McGivens’ words she hears confidence, assertion, but what she sees is more ambiguous, rent with misgivings. But it’s near impossible to tell which soul the uncertainty comes from: McGivens, who, like Rajinder, has a certain filial affection for Helena, or the Warehouse, which has been fond of her since the moment they were introduced.

Sophie swallows. “When will the Regents convene?” Sophie asks.

“In a week’s time,” McGivens says. “Kirinov is on his way from Moscow and Stefano from Spain.”

“And she’s being held in one of their secret facilities, I presume?”

McGivens smiles, a tiny, knowing twist of the lips that’s more in line with his usual, more friendly demeanor. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key. “Hidden in plain sight,” he says. “You can see her if you like?”

It’s as though he’s asking her if she’d like a cup of tea.

“Please,” Rajinder says. Sophie just nods.

They follow McGivens down the stairs to the Warehouse floor, but instead of venturing into the stacks he makes a sharp turn to face the blank wall. He holds the key by its wide base and touches its tip to the plaster above his head and carefully traces a line straight down. Its trace glows a faint orange and instantly Sophie sees a flare of pale red in that strange, shared aura between McGivens and the Warehouse.

“Stop,” she says.

McGivens freezes, stilling the tip of the key. “Mrs. Caturanga?”

“You’re hurting it.”

McGivens blinks. “The wall?”

“The Warehouse. Can’t you feel it?” Sophie reaches out. Her fingertips trail over the cracks in the plaster.

(She doesn’t see the glance that McGivens sends to Caturanga, or the minute, but still strangely desperate, shake of the head that Caturanga offers in return.)

McGivens turns back to the wall and presses his free hand to the plaster, attentive, as though waiting to detect something. He looks up, as though he could find the building’s eyes, or the seat of its sentience.

“Well, we’ve no other place to keep her, and we can’t very well leave her there,” he says.

The red that follows the movement of the key is sharp in Sophie’s mind, gritting, like stones rubbing against one another.

Through the vanished wall, Helena stands stiffly with her eyes wide, facing them; she has been pacing and, apparently, froze mid-stride when the wall opened. She has a green energy, close to chartreuse, vibrating as though it could work itself into the seams between the stones that pave the walls around her.

A lone candle illuminates the space from the center of the floor. On the near wall, a bench with a blanket and pillow. In the corner, a bucket beside a drainage chute where it can be emptied. Sophie watches Helena’s shoulders relax, first, and then pull back, straightening her spine.

“Wolcott?” she asks.

McGivens shakes his head. “No, H.G.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve come to bring me a proper lantern,” she says.

“We’ve discussed this, H.G.,” McGivens says. He twists his head and offers to Rajinder, over his shoulder, “Markham insisted that she not have access to flammable oils for fear she might use them to harm herself.”

“For goodness’ sake, man, if I’d intended to hurt myself I would have thrown myself overboard in the middle of the channel. If I wanted to hurt myself now, I could do it with my waistcoat!” She strides forward, charging the open wall, screeching to a halt inches before its cut-open lip. “I could hurt myself with my own _hair_ if I really wanted to,” she rants. “Right now I’m hurting myself with _boredom_. This damned candle doesn’t offer enough light to count my fing—”

“Helena!”

It is, Sophie has decided, enough.

Helena goes mute, mouth agape, and watches as Sophie steps over the lip of the opened wall into the cell.

“Are you quite finished?” Sophie asks. She steps close to Helena, a little too close, and draws herself up to her full height so that she can look at Helena down her nose.

Helena’s mouth snaps closed but her eyes widen. She says nothing.

“Nobody wanted to do this to you,” Sophie says, “but here we are.”

In the bottom of her vision, Sophie sees Helena’s shoulders move with her breath, her aura rippling out in time, cycling through shades of red, blue, and green.

Sophie is aware, too, of the stillness of the men behind her, outside of this doorless, windowless room.

“You’re here for a week, until the regents can come together,” she says, “and following the risks that your fellow agents have taken for you, and the risk that you’ve brought to the warehouse, it would behoove you to be civil. Wouldn’t you say?”

Helena doesn’t move, and doesn’t respond, but her aura shifts just a little. It softens.

“Good,” Sophie says.

She steps back enough to behold Helena fully, now, standing determinedly straight, like a child desperate not to cry in front of her mother.

“Books,” Sophie says. Helena’s eyes snap into focus, suddenly shining with hope.

“Might I?” Helena says.

“H.G—“ McGivens is interrupted by Sophie’s raised hand.

“She will have one book at a time,” Sophie says, “and enough light to read by. And in exchange she will be civil. Isn’t that right, Helena?”

Helena wrings her hands around one another, and nods quickly, every inch the desperate wretch that she is, offered such a small thing to make her existence more tolerable.

Sophie nods once, as firmly as she can, and turns and walks out of the cell. McGivens raises the key to close it up again, but before he touches it to the wall, Sophie turns and says, “Wolcott will see you when he can; he’s recovering from his babelfish removal.”

Helena has half-turned away from the group but she pauses, her palm to the back of her neck, and says quietly, “One might have told me. One might quite simply have told me, and I would have stopped asking.”

As the wall closes back up, Sophie inhales. She inhales and catches a whiff of—is that—

Oh, dear.

That evening, after dinner, as they sit together by the hearth, Rajinder looks up from his book and asks, "How is Charles?"

"Stirring," Sophie says. "I left him some soup with instructions for how to heat it on the stove. I imagine he'll be up and about the house tomorrow, and back to normal the next day."

"One of the many things I can't understand is why Helena seems not to be incapacitated by pain from the removal of her babelfish. She wore hers a full day, at least, longer than Charles or Wolcott, and she'd worn one before so her pain should be even more intense."

Sophie thinks of the strange, near-hyperactive cycling of Helena's colors when they arrived.

"She feels the pain," Sophie says. "But it does not incapacitate her. It seems to—it's as though it brings the parts of her in tune with one another."

"Her physical pain with her psychological suffering," Rajinder says. Sophie nods.

They sit quietly for awhile, until the lamp begins to smoke and sputter. Sophie rises and takes it to the back of the flat, to the small scullery to refill it from the can of oil they keep there, and to affix a new wick. When she returns to the living room, Rajinder, seated on the edge of the chesterfield, has leaned close to the candles on the end-table, seeking the light so that he can read his novel. A rush of warmth for him, of tenderness, rises in her. She walks quietly to sit beside him, abandoning her chair opposite the hearth.

"Darling," she says.

Rajinder marks his page with his finger and turns to look at her, smiling softly. He offers her his free hand and she takes it, lets him wrap his warm fingers around hers, softening the chill her own hands always seem to carry. It soothes her, gives her the nervous courage to say:

"I smelled apples in the Warehouse today, Rajinder."

His palm twitches slightly against her fingertips. “It likes you,” he says, and does not flinch.

“So you say.” Sophie swallows. “That’s all it means?”

“That’s all,” Rajinder says. He sets his novel on the end-table, letting it close without regard for marking the page, and brings his free hand over to rest overtop of hers. “That’s all it means,” he says.

 

//

 

“She smelled apples, didn’t she, Caturanga.”

Caturanga stares down at his chessboard over steepled fingers. He straightens, removes his spectacles, polishes them on his handkerchief, and sets them carefully back upon the bridge of his nose. _The pawn,_ he thinks, _to B4. Definitely the pawn to B4._

"Caturanga." McGivens repeats, more forcefully.

The pawn goes to B4, and then Caturanga rotates the board to play the other side before he looks up. "She did. Could I free Helena long enough for a game of chess? I promise she won't win, she never d—"

McGivens cocks his eyebrow and it's enough to silence Caturanga. He sighs and slouches back against his chair. "She did," he says, "but so did Helena, when she first came."

"Has Helena ever felt the Warehouse in pain?" McGivens asks, pointedly.

"Helena doesn't have the sight," Caturanga says.

McGivens shrugs. "Pragmatics. You know that."

Caturanga squints at the board again. It's strange timing in the game for a queen-side castle, but.. he moves the pieces, then turns the board again. Opposite him, the chair—the one where Helena usually sits—moves, and McGivens sits down.

"There's been some talk about America," McGivens says.

"There's much to say about America, I'm sure," Caturanga says. He shifts his rook and raises his hand to turn the board, but McGivens catches its opposite corner, holding it in place.

"Much bigger pieces than these are in play, Caturanga," McGivens says. "You don't need me to tell you that Wilhelm's making enemies faster than friends, and the Prussian navy is—"

"I know about the bloody Kaiser," Caturanga says, louder and more abruptly than he intends. "But America? Really? The Americans aren't forty years out of a devastating civil war, and the Regents think they're prepared to house _artifacts_?"

"America has rebuilt remarkably quickly," McGivens says. "You know as well as I that the situation there is at least as stable as the situation here, and will probably soon be more so."

Caturanga removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. "My wife is dark-skinned. Do you know how they treat Negroes in America?"

"I do," McGivens says, "and so does she. But the Warehouse seems to be choosing her, as the Warehouse chose me. It should be she who decides whether or not to accept, don't you think?"

Caturanga pulls his handkerchief and wipes his lenses, down near his lap. He settles them back upon his nose and blinks, for a moment, before looking up and saying, "I think, McGivens, that—"

But McGivens is gone.

 

//

 

When the wall opens, Wolcott sees, first, nothing but a shadowed lump in the center of the room, lit from the opposite side. As he squints and approaches, the lump acquires shapes and depth, and the light behind it flickers: it's Helena, of course, crouched on the floor alongside a small cluster of candles, over a thick tome.

"How do you do, H.G.?" Wolcott asks her and her body jumps; her eyes fly back over her shoulder, wide enough for the whites to be visible all the way 'round her irises.

"Wolly!" she exclaims, flying to her feet as though launched from a canon and diving toward him, arms flung about his shoulders.

"Hello," he says. Gingerly, he wraps his arms around her waist and squeezes before encouraging her to step back a little. Her eyes remain open and wild, not so much the gaze of a caged animal as the gaze of a starving prisoner held just beyond reach of a feast.

She grins at him and tugs him by the hand until they sit alongside one another on the bench along the wall. "I'm ever so pleased to see you, Wolly. How are you?"

"How am I? I'm fine, I suppose, now that blasted headache has worn off. But you, Helena—how are you?"

"Wolly, you must—this book! Have you seen this book?" She bends down, grasps the tome on the floor by its corner and drags it closer to her, and then hefts it into her lap.

Wolly furrows his brow at the name. "Earnest Match? Never heard of the fellow."

" _Ernst Mach_ , Wolly," she says. "The propositions he issues about the way light works, and its relationship to sound—why has no Warehouse agent ever studied this? Have you never wondered why artifacts create light and sound when neutralized?"

Wolly can't help but laugh, just a little. "I honestly can't say that I have, H.G."

"By God, Wolly, the opportunities that we've squandered! What we could learn about these artifacts, to better contain them, to better learn from their powers to improve the world we live in!" She turns the pages before her almost maniacally and Wolly can see etchings, marks on the pages.

"What are these?" he asks. He stills her hand with one of his, and runs a finger of the opposite hand along the scrawls in the margins.

“Well, I hadn’t anything to write with, but in the corner I found chipped-off piece of rock that left something of a mark on the page, so I used that.” She furrows her brow and leans closer to the page. “I haven’t the foggiest what I was trying to write, but that isn’t really the point. It’s the process of writing it out that helps.” Her disheveled head turns and looks up at him, smiling. She taps her temple with her fingertip and offers him a rakish grin. “It’s all up here, Wolly.”

Wolly smiles.

“Once all this is over, I’ll write to the Astronomical Society to see if I might request a consultation—there’s so much we could learn!” She begins to flip through the pages again, so quickly that Wolly knows she can’t see what’s written on them but can only survey the text as a chessmaster might see the board but not the pieces.

“Helena,” Wolly says. He stills her hand again, and she looks up at him. “You—you must have yourself freed from here, first. Are you so certain that you can do that?”

She narrows her eyes at him.

“You nearly murdered two men, H.G.”

She looks down at the book in her lap and closes it carefully. Her hands settle, palm-down, on the cover, like hummingbirds finally come to rest.

“Why have you come to me, here?” she asks quietly.

“Because Caturanga said you’ve been asking for me for days,” he replies.

The palms on the book-cover curl into themselves, loosely.

“It didn’t help,” she says, in a voice so small it feels swallowed by the damp of the cell. The dark eyes that look up at him now are devoid of the mania that filled them just a few moments ago. They are frightened and child-like and wet. “God, I did horrible things to those men, and it did nothing to lessen my suffering, but so help me I would do it again.”

Wolly opens his mouth to speak, to say something to stop her, but what can he say? What can he possibly say to that?

H.G. presses on: “I would do it again, Wolly, and my only regret is that I didn’t kill them.”

"H.G.," Wolly puts up his hand. He wants to stop her before she can say anything else, before he becomes accountable for anything else that she can say.

"And for all of this I am so grateful that you stopped me," she says, on a soft exhale. She grips his arm above the elbow, tight, her fingertips pressing into the hollow between muscle and bone.

She leans into him, then, her head on his shoulder. "I am so grateful that you stopped me when I could not stop myself," she says.

This is the genius and the madness of Helena G. Wells, Wolly thinks, as she relaxes into him. It must be. It can only be.

They sit quietly like that, Wolly leaning against the wall and H.G. leaning on Wolly, for a long time, until Wolly begins to feel that he might be shirking his inventory duties and can't help but shift a little. H.G. straightens, she passes scuffed fingertips over her eyelids and back across her disheveled hair.

"I will come back tomorrow," Wolly says eventually. "I'll return. Can I bring you anything?"

Helena lifts the book from the bench beside her and sets it back upon her lap, open to a page near the end. "Another book," she says. "Physics or philosophy. Something published no more than twenty years ago. Please?"

Wolcott smiles. "Of course."

 

* * *

 

 

Myka’s room at the B&B was vaulted a couple of days after she left, Leena told her, and it’s a bit of a length process to reverse the archiving, so they need to put her, for a night, into a different room.

There’d been one empty room when Myka left, not including HG’s, but that’s the room that Steve lives in now.

“You should totally camp out with me,” Claudia says a little too brightly. “Girls’ night!”

Myka’s touched—really she is. But Claudia will want to be up half the night and Myka wants— _needs_ —to sleep.

She pauses for a moment outside her own bedroom door and presses her ear to the wood to hear the mechanical clicking and clanking that indicates the necessary mechanisms are unpacking her space for her. Then she inhales deeply and walks the short few steps further down the hall and opens the door that used to be Helena’s.

The furniture inside is as it had been before Helena moved in. Myka pulls her suitcase in behind her, feels it bump up over the edge of the worn Turkish rug. Her eyes drift to the writing-desk in the corner. Even from here, she can see that the ink stains left behind by Helena’s late-night scribblings have vanished in a puff of Warehouse magic.

The length of time she can handle being in the room is the time it takes for her to change into some more comfortable clothing. The walls are too full of memories.

As she walks down the hallway toward the stairs, she overhears Steve’s and Claudia’s voices coming from Claudia’s room:  


“…bad juju in that room, Jinksy, that’s why I told you not to move into that one.”

“I get the feeling its ‘juju’ is worse for Myka than for me, Claud…”

There is dinner, and it feels… familiar, but not comfortable, like a shoe with a sole that’s worn too thin. Afterward, she wanders into the library and chooses a book from the shelf. Non-fiction, a biography of Lincoln, something as far away as possible from...

So she’ll read. It’s what she does.

She looks up to the sound of footsteps: Leena, standing in the doorway, whiskey bottle in one hand, two glasses in the other. When she glances back down, she’s on page three of the book, but when she glances outside and sees the change in light – an hour must have passed, at least.

“Pete’s asleep?” Myka asks.

Leena shrugs noncommittally. “He’s playing video games in his room with Claudia, which is as good as being asleep. He’s not coming back down here, anyway.”

She sets the tumblers down on the end-table by the sofa and pours the liquor. “And you know,” she says, “he and I talked a little while you were away. He’s okay with alcohol in the house. He says he’s happy enough, and he’s been sober for long enough, that he’d mind more to see us sneaking around than he’d mind to just see us having a glass after dinner, you know?”

The tumbler is cool when Leena presses it into Myka’s palm. Myka looks down at it, swirls it once in her glass, and thinks about that conversation… a month ago? Maybe? over bourbon in that loft sublet with her sister. “I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I just – I’d need to talk to him about it myself. You know?”

Leena squints at her. “Sure,” she says, as she sits down on the edge of the sofa.

She doesn’t ask if Myka would rather skip the drink now, then. And Myka is grateful for it, because it’s good whiskey and Leena is good company and while it feels normal, it feels good, to be back here, it doesn’t yet feel _right_.

“I really missed you,” Leena says. Then she laughs, almost self-deprecating, and shrugs, and says, “I mean, we all missed you. Pete, he…” she shakes her head fondly. “But I didn’t realize how much I’d grown to appreciate not being the only adult woman around.”

Myka smiles and bites her lip. “I don’t think you have any idea how good that is to hear,” she says.

Leena smile her knowing smile and shrugs a little.

Myka rolls her eyes and laughs quietly. “And I’d almost forgotten the whole thing where you know how I’m feeling better than I do,” she says. “For whatever it’s worth, I missed you, too.”

“I know you did,” Leena says, with a small smile of her own.

They talk, for a time, of nothing of substance; of road construction that makes it harder to run errands downtown, of an incident where the phish malfunctioned and Artie had to clean up some aerial photos taken by an amateur drone pilot and distributed on conspiracy theory websites. Leena talks about having gone on a few dates with a public servant who works for the county.

“He was sweet,” she says, “and cute, but I could tell he wasn’t feeling it so I gave him the out. It’s too hard to try to make anything work with someone who’s not going to be my One, you know?”

“That sucks,” Myka says. She exhales, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary, and sets her empty glass on the coaster on the end table. “But I can’t help but be a little jealous, you know? To be able to look at someone and just… understand how they feel.”

Leena downs the dregs of her glass and sets it beside Myka’s. “The funny thing about you, Myka, is that when you’re trying to understand relationships between other people, you read better than anyone I’ve ever met who didn’t have the Sight. It’s the people closest to you, the ones you’re most invested in, that make you second-guess yourself.”

And this: this is something that Myka didn’t miss about Leena at all. She eyes the bottle of whiskey on the far end table beside the sofa, out of reach.

“No,” Leena says. “You can have a drink while Pete’s upstairs playing video games, but I’m not letting you actually get drunk.”

Drunkenness, Myka thinks. The last time she was anywhere near drunk was that time in Maine, over dinner, with…

“Then do me a favor and don’t remind me of everything I failed to see in her back before I left,” Myka spits, more harshly than she intended, and definitely more harshly than she’s ever spoken to Leena before.

But Leena, who can see right through her as she sees right through everybody, is unfazed. She leans forward and rests the tips of warm fingers on Myka’s knee. “None of us saw what she was capable of,” she says. “Not even Artie. He saw his own resentment over the death of McPherson, he didn’t see anything inherently evil in HG. He just couldn’t tell the difference between those things. And so help me, Myka, after what that man did to me, and to Claudia, what he tried to _take_ from us, I was completely ready to try to see the best in HG. She duped all of us on that front, and I’m really, really hard to fool. She duped Mrs. Frederic. _Mrs. Frederic_ , who knew her before she was _bronzed_ , Myka.”

This was a bad idea. This whole conversation was a bad idea. “Thanks for the drink,” Myka says as she braces her hands on her knees to lever herself onto her feet

“Not yet, Myka.” Leena stays still, she does not move at all, but her narrowed eyes – those eyes that see too much—pin Myka back to her chair.

Leena sighs. “Six months ago I made a decision not to say anything about something I saw in you, and two hours later you were gone. So now I’m—I’m going to—“

She leans forward and presses her fingertips to her temples.

“There’s only one thing you didn’t see that everyone else could see and that’s that you had real feelings for her.”

When Myka had been in the eighth grade, she let Kurt Smoller copy her algebra test in one of her ill-fated attempts to gain a little more social capital and maybe make one or two more friends. They’d been caught, and the teacher had immediately reported Kurt to the principal. She didn’t report Myka, though, for reasons that Myka had never really understood but to assume they were grounded in pity, either for the shy, gangly girl who’d shot up awkwardly in height but whose breasts and hips patently refused to grow; or for the quiet, reserved girl whom everyone in the district had probably heard reprimanded somewhere by her father, be it in the bookstore for misshelving a novel or in the supermarket for confusing romaine and butter lettuces.

Myka hadn’t answered the teacher: she’d stared fixedly at her shoes, face burning red with shame, and shrugged.

She feels like that now.

“Pete, Claudia, Artie, they knew you were close,” Leena presses.

“We were friends,” Myka admits with another shrug.

“You and I are friends. You and Pete are close friends. You didn’t feel friendship for Helena Wells, Myka, and she didn’t feel friendship for you. Friendship doesn’t burn that brightly.”

Myka glances up at Leena, meets her too-direct gaze, and feels two opposing impulses: one leap to her feet and glower defensively down at Leena from her six-inch height advantage, and the other to stand more quietly and to walk to the door, to her car outside the door, and to drive away again.

“Don’t you dare,” Leena says. “I know what you’re thinking and you’d better not do it. Any of it.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Leena,” Myka says. Her eyes drop back to the thick strands of the rug.

“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you own your feelings. I want you to stop beating yourself up for having them. I want you to acknowledge to yourself, if not to anyone else, that doing horrible things—even _really_ horrible things—is not always the mark of a bad person; sometimes it’s just the mark of a person who’s really, really broken.”

“She kissed me,” Myka says, and immediately wishes she could draw the words back into herself. Leena might be a magnet for these kinds of statements, the way she draws them out.

“I wondered,” Leena replies.

“In Cairo, before…” Myka swallows. “I think—I think she wanted me to stop her. But I didn’t—I had no idea, I couldn’t see it for what it was. So I didn’t stop her. I could have prevented the whole mess, but I didn’t.”

“But you did, Myka.” Leena speaks softly but firmly, without condescension. “The crazy thing is, you don’t see this the same way the rest of us do. All you can see is how close we came to the end of the world, and you feel like you’re responsible for it. But this is the Warehouse: we’re on the razor-edge of the end of the world at least three or four times a year. What the rest of us seek, Myka, isn’t that you let things get so close. We see that you used what you knew about her, and about the situation, and you didn’t crack, and you _saved the world_ when it mattered most.”

Myka is tired. She is tired, and happy to be home but she’s overwhelmed, and she suddenly realizes that her hands are cramped from clenching against her knees and she hasn’t changed her clothes since she got on the plane that morning.

Maybe that’s why Leena’s words matter more than anyone else’s have so far.

Maybe that’s why.

But she still ends up sleeping on the sofa that night, rather than sleeping in the space that used to be H.G.'s.

 

//

 

 

In the morning, Pete wakes up when his alarm goes off and gets right out of bed, because some habits you learn in the military and never forget. He straightens his boxers, runs a hand through his sleep-stiffened hair to loosen it, and then grabs his towel from the hook on the back of the door and crosses the hall to the bathroom—

which is locked, and the shower’s running on the other side.

That’s weird, he thinks, because Steve prefers to shower in the evenings and Claudia isn’t awake yet and he can hear Leena downstairs in the kitchen, so—

and that’s when he remembers that Myka is home again.

If you’d asked him back after that Shakespeare heist how he would feel if Myka came back, he would have said he’d be excited. He’d be thrilled. He’d be happier than a pig in a giant pile of doo-doo.

But the happiness he feels now isn't like that at all. It's more like – not quite relief, but like things are settled in a way they never were before. The closest thing he can think of is probably the way he felt when he got off the plane from his last tour in the Middle East, two months before his Marines contract was to come up. He knew he wasn't going to re-up – he'd already started putting together college applications. He'd taken that step off the plane onto American soil knowing he was back where he belonged. He knew life would be different now than it had been before he'd enlisted, even if he went back to Ohio, and he was kind of nervous to see what it would look like, but he was home again, and that's what mattered.

(Of course, what had happened then was that Amanda, whom he'd met and gotten engaged to in the corps, went to college with him but stayed in the Reserves the whole time because she always knew she was going to go career, and while she was studying and training with the ROTC to meet her requirements, he was drinking with kids who'd never known what responsibility felt like, and she'd married him when things were still fun but then they graduated and moved to DC and she started doing tours again, and things got bad with his drinking while she was gone, until she finally arranged for a long-term position in Arlington so she could work on getting him cleaned up, but that turned into a year and a half of trying to get him into treatment while stashing money in a separate bank account because he was blowing everything they had in their joint, a separate account she disclosed in the divorce proceedings but that he never fought her on, not a dime, because he'd been drinking in desperation to protect himself from how fluffy, how weightless civilian life felt compared to how it had felt to be a Marine, and she'd been stashing cash in desperation to protect herself from, well, from _him_.  
  
…and maybe that wasn't really the best analogy.)

But it feels like a return to normalcy. And it feels like potential. He knows himself well enough to know it may take a minute to get over her leaving, but he knows _her_ well enough to know that he will get over it if it means he gets to have her back.

Myka is home, and she's showering in his—no, _their_ —bathroom, so he'll need to walk the extra eight steps around the corner to the other one to have his morning pee, and this might be the best news he could possibly imagine to start this new day.

 

//

 

It feels like slipping a foot into an old, forgotten sock. Like many old, forgotten socks, it's become moth-eaten over time, it's got lint-balls in the toes and needs darning, but it's familiar.

That's more or less where the metaphor ends, though, because Myka doesn't know the first thing about darning socks, but she knows she'll be able to fix any holes that need fixing in her return to life at the Warehouse and Leena’s.

Things happen slowly.

Small things are sometimes hard. She’d had a moment in her bedroom, the morning after she arrived, when it had been fully re-installed. In it were her old Frye boots, the ones she'd worn in Egypt, which she had intentionally abandoned when she'd left South Dakota. They'd been too expensive for her to toss, but too burdened with memory for her to keep. She'd hoped that maybe Claudia would have found them and kept them, but they’re still there, barely even dusty in her closet.

Adjusting to Steve is easy; within days, Myka can barely remember a time when he wasn’t there.

But when he's packing for a retrieval a week after Myka gets home, she notices a worn paperback copy of the Tao Te Ching tucked into the half-zipped front pocket of his laptop case and thinks, _thank God, there's someone else here who reads_.

Since Helena isn't there anymore, of course.

And then, of course, there’s Pete, whose importance never really made itself known to Myka until long after she’d left, when she’d gradually come to realize that loneliness, once so omnipresent in Myka’s life that, like a white noise, she didn’t even know to notice it, had become an unusual feeling. Artie and Claudia and Leena played into that too, of course, but each of them have roles, specific places in her life, but somehow Pete had wormed himself into every corner of her life without her noticing, not in an invasive way, but as a fixture, a force of stability, the way some people treat their parents or their siblings.

She so quickly gets so used to having Pete everywhere in her life again that when they’re stymied by the artifact that’s making things vaporize, she doesn’t think twice about suggesting they see what H.G. has to say about it. She remembers it from a year ago, now, back before Helena had joined their team, back when Helena had been a target (and a fascination) Myka was trying to learn everything about, she’d read that casefile.

She doesn’t expect Pete to be such a damn _child_ about it, though.

It takes her a minute to notice, at first, that he’s being a big baby, because she’s preoccupied with the image of Helena standing there in front of her. In front of all of them.

She’s a different Helena, this time, than she saw in the bookstore. She’s proud, and defiant, and _cocky_ in that way that Myka could never help but admire, even when it was at its most extreme and ridiculous.

But she’s different, too, from the Helena she’d known before. When her hands move—the images of them—they’re soundless, the leather of her jacket not creaking, her fingers not making that soft, hushing sound when they touch one another. She runs her hand through her hair, that thick, heavy hair, pulling it off her neck and letting it resettle, and that’s soundless too, no rustle as it tumbles onto her shoulders.

For a moment, a fleeting instant, Myka _aches_ with the desire to touch Helena in some simple way, to rest a hand on the small of her back, to let their fingers touch while one of them hands something (a pencil, a glass of water) to the other.

It’s a fleeting instant and then she’s back, listening to Helena’s story, gathering data, because that’s what she’s here to do.

 

//

 

Pete is livid. Pete is _furious_.

He can see Myka’s bag in the corner of his eye while he’s driving, on the floor by her seat and resting against her calf, and he’s sure that a lesser man would reach over and grab it and throw it out the window, as far as he can into the badlands. He imagines that magic 8 ball thing smashing against the rocks and the idea of it, the mental image alone, gives him such relief.

Really, the only reason he doesn’t grab the damn thing and toss it is because he knows Myka really likes that bag. And, for whatever reason, Myka also still seems to like H.G., which might be the most infuriating thing of it all.

“I can’t believe you have any interest in a single damn thing she has to say,” he says.

“She’s given us _useful information_ , Pete,” Myka replies, just as growly as he is.

“I can’t believe you’re trusting that it’s useful. God, I’d bet you ten bucks that we’re both going to end up disintegrated by this thing before we find it, except for the fact that when I’m a pile of dust I won’t have hands to spend the money with or a mouth to gloat at you.”

“Steve didn’t think she was lying.”

“Does Steve’s lie detector work on a hologram?”

He takes small victory from the fact that she doesn’t respond to that. She reaches down into her bag--

“You are not getting her out while I’m driving.”

\--and pulls out her glasses case, opens it, and pulls on her sunglasses. “I’m not an idiot, Pete.”

She isn’t, but _god_ is she acting like one right now. He’s not going to say so, because they need to work together to solve this case and he’s got nothing to gain by letting this sink to petty insults. But what he hates most right now, probably, is the fact that she probably thinks his silence is him letting her win.

He gestures to a roadside sign. “Dunkin’, next exit. I’m going to need a jelly doughnut and a very large coffee to get through this. And I think you’re buying.”

She sighs. “Fine.”

 

//

 

She doesn’t want a doughnut or a coffee, so she gives Pete a five from her wallet and waits in the car. She can see through the window that the line is long, so she does exactly what she knows he doesn’t want her to do: she activates Helena.

Helena materializes, somewhat ironically, in the driver’s seat.

“Such temptation,” Helena murmurs, her hand stretching out and hovering above the top of the steering wheel, a tiny fraction of an inch from where her palm might touch.

“I need to know you’re not going to fuck us over on this,” Myka says.

The image of Helena’s hand falls through the steering wheel and lands mutely on her lap. The eyes that turn to face Myka are narrowed, primed to oversee some kind of defensive retort, but when they rest on her they soften, chastened.

“Such language,” Helena says, with a weak chuckle.

Myka swallows and schools her face still, much as part of it wants to soften. “I haven’t put you away before Pete comes back out, then the rest of this drive is going to be hell. Please, answer me.”

Helena looks down to where her fingers dance around one another in her lap. “I’m not going to… _fuck you over_.”

“Give me a reason to believe you.”

“Because I’m _selfish_ , Myka,” Helena says, head tipping back, eyes cast heavenward as though they could see through the roof of the SUV. “In between these visits, I don’t exist. I completely cease to be.”

The eyes Helena turns to Myka now are dark and steady. “If I am not useful, I do not exist. If I don’t help you, I will, effectively, die, in the most ignominious way possible: forgotten by history on a shelf somewhere in the Warehouse.” She pauses, then amends. "Forgotten _again_ by history, on a shelf somewhere in the Warehouse."

Myka swallows. "You were ready to die in Yellowstone."

Helena’s movement is fleeting, almost impossibly fast for eyes any slower than Myka's, but Myka does see it: the tiny droop, the brief drop of the shoulders before Helena pulls them up and back again and says, "Yes, well. Things change, don't they?"

"Not unless something changes them."

"Myka," Helena says to her lap, "how could I possibly be more different now than I was then?"

Myka opens her mouth, inhales to answer but in that moment the restaurant door opens and she thanks the universe that Pete is a gentleman, holding the door for an elderly couple, because it gives her a flying second to fumble with the projector and only barely to catch Helena's almost-frantic eyes before she disappears.

“Here,” Pete says, as he settles into his seat (and for a moment Myka worries that he’ll feel the warmth from Helena sitting there, before she remembers that Helena was not warm). He reaches across and hands her a styrofoam cup with a teabag dangling from under its lid, and then fumbles in his jacket pocket and pulls out a pack of Twizzlers. “I know you didn’t want it, but it turns out this place is connected to the gas station through the back, and their little tea station actually had Earl Grey teabags, so.” He takes a powdery bite of his donut as he starts the ignition, and says, mouth full, “My snack’s on you. Yours is on me. Capisce?”

Myka smiles. “Thanks.” She takes a sip of her tea. Splash of milk, no sugar, perfectly prepared, and there’s relief in seeing that he remembers how she takes it.

 

//

 

The case is built of things that Pete could never have expected.

One, that H.G. Wells would do what needed to get done to save a stadium full of people.

Not that he’s forgiven her. Or that he trusts her. Because it’s not like she’s got a lot to gain by being difficult in her whole hologram state thing. But still.

Two, the vibe that he gets while he’s cuffing Varley while Myka’s pulling the Horn out of its dish. It’s not bad. It’s sort of… hot and cold together? Like an icee-hot patch on the back of his neck. He glances back over his shoulder and H.G.’s standing there still, because they didn’t bother to put her away just yet. She’s standing there and she’s watching Myka but she’s got her hands clenched so tight together that the knuckles are white. And he realizes: she’s _worried_ about her. Her mouth opens like she’s going to say something, but then she looks over at him and narrows her eyes, a little bitchy like usual, and snaps her lips shut.

Three, that Myka and him, they’ve really still got it. Because they’ve got to get their guy to the local authorities but they’ve only got one car and they can’t very well let him get close enough to H.G. to accidentally realize that she’s a freaking hologram. So he makes eye contact with Myka who understands immediately what he’s thinking, and she nods and looks over at H.G. and says, “come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”

So Myka and H.G. walk one way down the hallway and Pete knows they’re just going to go as far as the nearest corner, so they’re hidden, and then Myka’s going to turn H.G. off and then meet them back at the rental car. And that’s exactly what happens, though Myka is really quiet for the drive.

When they stop at the sheriff’s station, and Myka’s doing the intake paperwork, Varley leans over to Pete and says the first thing he’s said since they cuffed him:

“D’you think she’s happy?”

Pete furrows his brows. “Who?”

“Your partner.” Varley gestures with his chin.

“That’s kind of a weird question, man.”

Varley sighs and drops his head and he looks like the overgrown kid he kind of is. He shrugs crookedly. “I know. But the alien loves her, and I’ve been paying attention to those guys for years, and I didn’t think they loved much of anyone.”

“The alien?”

Now Varley looks up again, and looks over at Pete like _Pete_ ’s the one who’s nuts. “The one from… before. The one who understood me.”

Pete laughs loudly, once, a big guffaw, and says, “She _is_ kind of an alien, isn’t she, Varls? But I don’t think she really knows what love is.”

Varley shrugs. “You should ask her,” he says, looking at Myka. “I think she probably knows.”

…it had never occurred to Pete that there might be something there. But now, looking back at it, he doesn’t know how he could have been so blind.

 

//

 

Myka manages not to open, she manages barely to touch, Helena’s orb until they’re in the car driving out of the airport parking lot in Rapid City. The horn is suspended in a vat of neutralizer in the trunk, and Pete is driving because he enjoys it and right now the last thing she wants to think about is the road.

She pulls out the projector and says, “I thought we could maybe let her ride with us for awhile.”

Pete glances over at her and, incomprehensibly, waggles his eyebrows. “Okay,” he says.

Well, okay then. She’d braced herself for a battle, but if he isn’t going to give her one, she isn’t going to create problems where none exist already.

Helena’s image materializes in the back seat of the SUV, driver’s side. Myka feels herself smiling as Helena squints at her, then cocks her head, and says, “It’s the same day.” Then she glances toward the windows. “Or the night after the same day, at any rate. Did you two manage to lose it somehow, even with the man in cuffs and he horn in hand? Is the game still afoot?”

It’s a petty jab, but it’s touched with a faint hope that Myka understands, now, because if they’re still on the hunt, then Helena is still needed. And if Helena is still needed, then, well, Helena still _is_.

Myka feels the anticipation in her gut that she feels when she’s about to give someone a truly wonderful gift. She twists further in her seat, pulling her knee up and tucking the shoulderstrap of her seatbelt under her arm, and says, “No, it’s all contained. It’s in the trunk.”

Helena blinks impassively back at her. “Why am I here, then?”

Myka smiles, and shrugs. “How are you?”

Helena stares back, uncomprehending, for a moment, her lips slightly parted. Then they twist into a subtle, barely-there semblance of a smile, her palms flexing against her thighs. “Immaterial,” she says. “And yourself?”

Myka shrugs and smiles widely, her chin resting on the shoulder of her seat-back, and says, “Happy to be back in the game.”

“How long were you away?”

“Six months. And, god, I should tell you about my Dad…”

 

//

 

They prattle on for the entire ninety minute drive. Pete lets them. He learns more about Myka’s time away during this drive than he’d managed to learn in all the previous weeks, and there’s part of him that’s a little bitter about that, sure. But listening to them, their back-and-forth like this, he can’t really believe he never noticed it before, the energy Myka has when she talks to Helena, different, deeper, than even when she talks to him.

The next morning, when they’re shelving the horn, he doesn’t say anything when Myka opens H.G. again. She gets a bit defensive anyway, saying, “she deserves to be here. Without her, we never would have bagged this one.”

He can’t help but watch them from around the corner while they stand there by the shelf. H.G. is looking at Myka like Myka is the only thing in the entire world that matters, and she’s got her arms wrapped around herself, tight. And Pete is a hugger, always has been, and he can tell that that’s what she wants. She wants to hug Myka. He can’t see Myka’s face, but he knows her well enough to recognize that curve to her shoulder and the way her head is dipping down a little. She’s _sad_.

Now Helena’s looking at the projector and she’s bracing herself the way a prisoner braces for a beating, and then, as she dissolves back into the 8-ball thingy, he realizes that in the space of 24 hours he’s somehow moved from hating, hating, _hating_ H.G. Wells to feeling… well, _sorry_ for her.]

And there’s Myka, standing there looking basically exactly like Luke at the end of the Return of the Jedi after he’s seen the ghosts. Sort of bittersweet.

This thing that they’re doing to Helena – he doesn’t like it. It doesn’t sit right with him at all.

 

//

 

Irene will return Helena to the regents’ vault tomorrow, but it’s late, now. This is how she justifies the decision to take the projector and coin home with her.

She really has no justification for the decision to activate Helena in her living room again.

Helena’s eyes, upon first appearance, are bright, but when they take in their surroundings they dim quickly.

“Hello, Irene,” Helena says, lackluster.

Irene smiles. “Hello, Helena. Am I a disappointment this evening?”

She would have predicted bluster and sarcasm, Helena’s usual acerbic wit, but none of that is there, and that’s how Irene comes to know that Helena has been rubbed raw and open, like a foul blister.

Helena only lifts a shoulder, very slightly, and says, “I saw Myka, last time. I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“Only a few hours,” Irene says. Then: “How was it?”

The Helena’s fingers tug at the creases in the opposite elbow of her jacket. “I’d feared she’d never forgive me,” she says, “and that felt devastating. But now I think she might, eventually, and…” she shifts, pulls her jacket tighter over her shoulders and straightens her hair, “and that might be worse. Because what can I do with her forgiveness like this? How can I be the person she wants me to be when—when I’m not even a _person_?”

Irene has no answer for that.

Helena doesn’t cry, this time. She doesn’t scream. She stands there, almost still, eyes downcast, her shoulders moving with the simulation of breath. Irene stands there, with her, holding the orb.

“I’d like to rest,” Helena says, eventually. “Please put me away.”

Irene nods once, and does.


	17. The War That Will End War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the morning, when Helena is gone, Myka will consider the extent of her foolhardiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this from my iPad so the formatting process has been weeeeeeird. Apologies if things look off.
> 
> Also, happy holidays with this loooooooong chapter! I thought about splitting it because, seriously, out of control, but ultimately I really wanted this chapter to take us to the end of S3 (well, technically, end of the beginning of episode 1 of S4) so you're getting the whole 10,000+ word thing.
> 
> As a reminder, the names of Christina's murderers in this are taken, with permission, from "Reset" by Scotchplaid, which you should all be reading if you're not, because it's amazing.
> 
> Oh, and thanks to all who pointed out the timeline error in the last chapter. I'm going to go fix that right after I post this (it's not that significant to the overall narrative here, anyway).
> 
> Some NSFWishness near the end.

Charles receives word through Sophie when Helena is to be seen by the… Regents, whomever they may be, at the Warehouse.

  
He had been up late the previous night, working on the outline for a new novel. Struggling at it, truth be told, since he’d worked through most of Helena’s notes prior to her, er, trip to Paris, and she’s sent nothing to him since she’s been imprisoned.

Regardless, he stumbles down the stairs late, as usual, to find Sophie on her way out the door, a large bag in hand.

“It will be today,” she says.

“To—today?” Charles sputters, reaching for his coat.

At the Warehouse, McGivens stops him in Caturanga’s office, but he lets Sophie through. “She looks a mess down there,” McGivens says, “Sophie can make her presentable.”

Caturanga and Wolly sit in the office with him, in shared silence. A half-hour after she’d vanished into the Warehouse, Sophie re-emerges. She exchanges a wordless nod with Caturanga, who touches her wrist as they cross paths and he goes down the stairs.

“How is she?” Charles asks.

“How is she ever?” Sophie replies. Wolcott huffs out a dry laugh.

But a scant few minutes after that, Caturanga re-enters the office, eyebrows drawn. He tips his chin at Wolcott.

“She wants you,” he says.

Wolcott glances from one side to the other and then clasps at his chest, sheepishly. “Me? But I know nothing of the Regents’ proceedings.”

Caturanga shrugs. “She insists. She’ll have you, or she’ll have no advocate at all.”

Charles sees Wolcott’s throat move as he swallows twice. He stands stiffly, pats his hair and then his shirt-front into place, and makes his way toward the stairs.

“What was that about?” Charles asks as Caturanga sits, heavily, in the chair that Wolly had left empty.

“I’ve no idea, my boy,” Caturanga says, passing his palm over his scalp, “No idea at all.”

Charles looks down at his hands, clasped in his lap, and fiddles his thumbs. Beside him, Caturanga moves, shifting papers and objects on the desk without any apparent purpose. “Do you play chess?” Caturanga asks, eventually.

“Poorly,” Charles says, with a dry laugh, down toward his thumbs. “And I can’t say the spirit moves me to try, truly, at the moment.”

The paper shuffling slows, and then stops.. “You’re right,” Caturanga says. “You’re right.”

An hour passes. Then another. Caturanga offers to flag down a newsboy, outside, and pay him to fetch them supper from the pub, but both Charles and Sophie decline. They sit, sharing the impenetrable silence of waiting. Charles waits, and thinks of waiting, and remembers Helena, drugged in a rocking chair in a formless grey dress.

When the door opens, when Wolcott emerges, when Helena emerges after him – she is not the drab grey that has come to occupy all of Charles’ consciousness. Her clothing is dark and clean, her eyes bright. She’s smiling. Smiling.

“Helena.” Charles jumps to his feet and she collides with him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Over her shoulder his eyes meet Wolly’s, who offers a slight, crooked smile and a shrug.

“What would you like, Helena?” Charles asks as he pulls back. He wants to pat his hands over her shoulders and down her arms, like a mother looking to see if her child is all in one piece after a trip-and-fall. “We could go down to the Whistle and Farthing for supper and pints?”

Helena’s radiant smile falters, just a little. “If it’s all right with all of you,” she says, “I think I’d prefer to go home."

"I haven't cooked anything." Charles' head jerks to glance back over his shoulder – he had forgotten, for the moment, that Sophie was there. She looks at Helena with her head slightly cocked, arms crossed over her chest. "I haven't cooked anything,” she repeats, “but there are some preserves in the larder and some cold meat in the box from yesterday. And there's bread from yesterday as well."

Helena steps back from Charles and carefully steps around him. Her face is inscrutable as she stands before Sophie, her hands rising slowly to grip at Sophie's elbows. "I can think of nothing finer than to eat something that's been sitting in the larder for a full fortnight, Sophie, if it's something that you made."

Sophie smiles, but the smile is tight. Charles can read her movements as she opens her crossed arms, moves them forward to squeeze at Helena's elbows, then lets them fall to her side as she steps back.

 

//

 

Sophie is frightened.

"What did they decide about her?" she asks Rajinder that night.

"That Wolcott," he says, bent over his tea at the dining table. "He's a good boy. A solid agent, but above that, a good, earnest boy who wins over the intentions of good men."

They shared a cold dinner with Charles and Helena at their house before they retired. Now, at home, they share a late-evening tea in the kitchen before going to bed themselves.

There's a smudge of oil on her water glass; Sophie rubs at it with her thumb. "She's reinstated."

"On probation. But yes."

Sophie takes a small bite of her biscuit, and then another, and swallows. "What would you have done?"

"I thought it would have been victory enough to keep her out of bronze," Rajinder says, with a sigh. “I wouldn't have petitioned for her to remain at the Warehouse… I don't know that she should be there."

"She shouldn't," Sophie says, but it sounds like a pronouncement, a royal decree.

Rajinder tips his head, acquiescent and apologetic. "The regents see her retrieval rate. Which is… outstanding. They made their piece with her madness when they pulled her out of the damned asylum."

"She shouldn't have access to Artifacts. She's not a monster, Rajinder, but nor is she stable. She'll do it again."

"What would you have me do, Sophie?" Rajinder bellows, thumping his hand on the table loudly enough that Sophie drops the half-biscuit in from her hand and jumps back in her chair.

She's never heard him bellow like that.

He blinks at her twice as she leans back against her seat. She sees the tension in his eyes, pulling at their edges and then releasing. His hand relaxes against the tabletop.

"I'm sorry," he says, ashamed, "Forgive me, please. I'm… I’m frightened for her, and for the Warehouse. But I shouldn't have… I didn't mean to frighten you."

Rajinder’s colours flare, that flash of red anger subsiding into a deep purple of frustration and confusion. That anger was not directed at her, she can tell, but at the situation; it was a lashing-out over his concern for Helena.

Sophie gathers the bits of broken biscuit and puts them on the plate, and then savours a sip from her tea before swallowing. She looks over at Rajinder who sits with his fingertips resting on the edge of the table, eyes downcast. “She needs to be kept busy,” she says slowly. “Distracted. Her energy contained. I’ve an idea that might work for a time, but… not forever.”

“What’s your idea?” Rajinder asks, looking up, eyes wide and hopeful.

Sophie smiles. “Let me discuss it with her first.”

 

//

 

Caturanga is sitting with Crowley and Rajinder, briefing them ahead of their newest retrieval, when the bell rings signaling that someone has entered the shopfront that is the Warehouse’s façade.

He crosses out into the front room: it’s a newsboy, standing with a card in hand.

“Message for a Mister Catcherana, sir,” he says.

Caturanga smiles. He’s heard worse mispronunciations before. He thanks the boy, tips him a penny, and takes the card with the Wells family imprint on the back. It reads: _No time for inventory today, I’m afraid. I’ve an appointment with a man from the Astronomical Society to discuss new projects in theoretical physics. Tell Kipling he can have my share of the tick-boxing and list-making, fond as he is of putting everything (and everyone) in its place. –HG_

Caturanga can’t keep from chuckling to himself as he steps back into his office to finish the briefing. Kipling will be out with Crowley, so HG’s share of the inventory will not be done today. It’s not cause for worry: there is always more inventory to take. He tosses the card on top of the papers at the end of his desk and returns to where Crowley and Kipling are examining the reports of a spate of ghost sightings in Glastonbury.

  
//

 

Crowley would never admit to how easily his eye is caught by the Wells insignia.

Caturanga goes back to the shopfront to retrieve the latest train tables with the day’s post, and Crowley dives to the card sitting atop that stack of papers on the desk.

“You’re pathetic,” Kipling says, as though he were stating the weather.

It’s true, Crowley knows.

“What the devil is she doing with the Astronomical Society?” he mutters.

“Putting her head in the sky where it belongs, and thereby staying out of our way,” Kipling says, as he stands. He snatches Crowley’s hat from the hat-stand and presses it onto his head with more force than necessary. “Leave it, man. We’ve a job to do.”

Crowley feels his face tighten. It’s a caller, surely, this man from the Astronomical Society; some punter who thinks he’ll impress her with a little stargazing.

“That isn’t for you.”

Crowley looks up. Caturanga looks back at him from the doorway, jaw firm, train schedules in hand. Caturanga steps forward, purposefully—and he can be an intimidating figure, in moments like this; Crowley can so easily forget on normal days that Caturanga comes from savagery—and snatches the card from Crowley’s hand, replacing it with the timetable.

“Go,” he says.

Crowley sets his jaw.

“Come on, man.” Kipling, by his elbow, holding out Crowley’s coat. Crowley takes it and turns for the door as he shrugs it on.

“He was a good, sane man once, before you let that harlot into our ranks,” Crowley hears Kipling say, behind him.

On the street, Crowley flags a Hansom almost immediately and urges the driver off before Kipling can climb in behind him.

They’ll find one another on the train. Crowley glances down at the timetable in his hands. The next northbound train departs

in an hour, and he hopes to be comfortably installed in the dining car with a brandy and a nice cigar by the time it pulls away.

 

//

 

In all his years in the professoriat, and all his years at the Astronomical Society, Thomas knows he's never known a mind quite like that of young Helena Wells.

His secretary had been quite nervous when Thomas had requested that he initiate the security processes for gaining Ms. Wells access to the laboratories.

"If you've need for a note-taker in the labratories, Professor Eddington, I'd be more than happy to serve the purpose myself," he'd said. Thomas had laughed--not unkindly, he hopes, in retrospect--and advised the boy not to worry for his employment.

The relief shone clearly on young James' face.

Eddington's students had been more difficult to assuage.

"I'll not be responsible for tutoring her in calculus," Gerald had said, Samuel nodding behind him.

"I don't think she'll be needing it," Thomas had replied.

Samuel had scoffed. "The next Agnesi, then, is she?"

"Not likely," Eddington had shrugged, "but nor are you likely to be the next Newton."

It'd clammed them both right up.

"At any rate," Eddington had continued, "she's quite lovely to look at, and unmarried. It could be quite the opportunity for one of you two sad sacks, couldn't it?"

Even Eddington himself had to admit that while some of her theories and calculations were impressive for someone so untrained, he looked forward to the opportunity to have a pretty face in his laboratory from time to time.

Gerald took a shine to her very quickly, and while she'd plenty to learn from him in physics he was never a match for her wit.

She'd a way of cocking an eyebrow that was almost mannish, but over a smile (and a figure) so feminine, it lent her an air of gravitas which so many women lacked.

They'd left the laboratory together one evening, Gerald and Helena. Through the window, Thomas had seen Gerald helping Helena into a Hansom before climbing in behind her.

The following morning, Thomas had received notification through a messenger that Helena would be away for up to a fortnight. She had told him that such things would sometimes happen; "other responsibilities," she'd said, without explanation.

Gerald had looked distraught upon his arrival later that day.

"She's a harlot," he'd said, with surprising vitriol. "She's little more than a common whore."

Why the change in tone? Just the previous day, he'd seemed quite enamored.

"Did you know, Professor Eddington, that Helena has had a child?"

No, Thomas said, he hadn't known that.

"She has had a child but no husband, Professor!"

And how had Gerald come to know about this child, hmm? Surely not because he'd gone last night, with Miss Wells, to engage in the kind of behaviour that might cause a woman to become pregnant out of wedlock?

"Sod off, old man. You know it's different for a man."

It is, yes, Thomas had agreed, but whether it should be is a different question.

"Don't tell me you're a bloody suffragette."

Thomas had laughed. Very well, he'd said, I won't tell you that.

By the time Helena returns, a fortnight later, Thomas finds that she's been reading articles in the latest publications: fringe stuff, really, hypothesizing relationships between space and time.

"Is it possible?" she asks him, the day she comes back to the lab, brandishing a dog-eared journal. "Could one theoretically bend the fabric of space and, in so doing, bend the fabric of time?

"So theorize some of the Europeans, I suppose," Eddington says, "but I'm more interested in learning about space such as it is, rather than space as it could be... folded."

"We must build something," she says. "A vehicle. One that could be used to travel space and, at high-enough velocities, to bend it."

Eddington had laughed. "The university will not fund such a radical and questionable endeavour."

"I'll fund it," she'd said. Then amended: "Well, my brother will. He's nothing to do with the royalties he's built up on his books. Imagine! To travel close to those stars you've spent so many hours observing from so far away!"

It's impossible not to be swept up in her energy. All right, he says, he'll help with the project if her brother will fund it.

 

//

 

Sophie is breading cutlets for dinner when Helena comes whirling into the kitchen with all the grace of a winter storm. "I must ask you something," Helena says. She has come to forego all greetings and pleasantries as a matter of course.

  
"Very well," Sophie says. She dusts the flour from her hands and begins to heat oil in a pan for frying.

"When did you learn kempo?" Helena asks.

This gives Sophie pause. "Ken-po?"

"Kempo," Helena repeats. "It's my preferred style of hand-to-hand combat."

Sophie can't help but scoff at that. "Even with my Warehouse affiliations, Helena, I could never have trained in hand-to-hand combat without bringing threats from law enforcement down upon my family."

"It's perfect," Helena says. "It makes perfect sense. Time travel."

"Helena--"

"It's remarkable, what a person will say when he's delirious with pain," she says, matter-of-factly. She's leaning back against the worktop beside Sophie, tearing bits off the remainders of yesterday's bread and eating them with disproportionate energy.

The casuality of her words takes hold of something at the root of Sophie's gut and pulls. Carefully, she lays the first cutlet into the oil bath.

"They described what you did," Helena says. "Poule and Lebecque. They described how you tried to stop them."

Sophie half-drops the second cutlet into the oil and it splashes, sending drops of scalding grease to burn her skin, but she doesn't care, she can't be bothered, because after all this time she still has no idea, not a single clue, what happened the day of Christina's death. To hear that they'd said she'd tried to stop them. She can't imagine that she wouldn't have tried, but to hear that she had--that she did--

"What did I do?" Sophie asks.

"You fought them using Kempo," Helena says gleefully. "The fast combinations of strong strikes that they described could only have been kempo."

Sophie swallows. "All--all right," she stutters, "but then how can I... I don't know kempo."

"Isn't it obvious, Sophie? The timeline! The timeline is irregular. It can only be that I must teach you kempo now, in the future, and then send you back into the past to defend my daughter!"

"Helena," Sophie sighs, "I'm nearly sixty. I can't learn kempo now."

"But you can!" Helena cries. "You already have, even if you haven't done it yet! We'll begin first thing in the morning. I shall convert your old bedroom into our dojo. Be here early and you'll have your first lesson before breakfast. And once we've mastered this, once I've worked out the science of it with Eddington, we'll try it. And we'll try it again. And again, and again, until my daughter survives."

Sophie sighs. With somewhat more aggression than is necessary, she uses a spatula to lift the cutlets from the oil and sets them on the waiting plate.

It was her goal, wasn't it, by encouraging the connection with the Astronomical Society? To distract Helena from the Warehouse and the dangers it could bring?

"Very well," Sophie says. "I'll be there tomorrow."

 

//

 

"Absolutely not!" Caturanga cries.

Sophie sits at her vanity, carefully teasing a comb through her greying hair before braiding it for the night, and Rajinder can't understand how she can be so calm about the decision to let herself be beaten about by a trained fighter of less than half her age.

"It's for the Warehouse's safety, and by extension, all of our safety," Sophie says. "Surely you don't expect that she'll actually strike me, do you?"

"I've no blasted idea!" Caturanga exclaims. "Isn't that the whole point? That she's dangerously unpredictable?"  
"But what if she's right, Rajinder?" Sophie asks. "What if we do this--if I do this--and we can save Christina's life as a result?"

"Sophie," Rajinder says quietly. He goes to her now, rests his palms on her shoulders. She sets her comb back on the table and covers his hand with hers. "Surely you know that isn't possible."

"I know that I do not know Kempo, and nevertheless used it against Christina's killers," she says. "Can you explain that any other way?"

"You're trusting the words of a delusional young woman," Caturanga replies sadly.

"I don't think she's delusional about this," Sophie says. "I think she's too invested in it to be delusional. And, dare I say it, too smart."

Rajinder meets Sophie's eyes in the mirror before them. "You're still ridden with guilt, aren't you," he says.

Sophie glances down, but doesn't reply.

"And I can't talk you out of this, can I," he says, but he knows it isn't a question.

Sophie looks up at the mirror again and shakes her head minutely.

"Then I shall heat your bath for you tomorrow night before you come home," he says, "and I shall stop by the chemist to purchase some soothing salts for the water, hmm?"

Sophie squeezes his hand, then twists her neck to drop a kiss on the bone of his thumb where it rests on her shoulder.

"Perhaps you might enjoy the bath with me?" she says, with a coy smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Caturanga smiles widely at that. "Perhaps I might."

 

////\\\\\\\////\\\\\\\

 

Myka wants to make Pete ride with Emily Lake back to her apartment, because her own first impulse upon seeing the bewildered H.G. Wells doppelganger had been to want to touch her.

Not in, like, a dirty way or anything. She has a very specific craving to reach for her left hand so that she can inspect the creases of the knuckles for any remains of ink. The pads of Helena’s hands always had a dry, matte softness, like a high-quality suede. Claudia had introduced her to gritty mechanic’s soap as a way to scrub away the ink that would work its way into even the finest wrinkles of her skin. It barely helped with the ink, Helena had said, but it left her skin so impeccably soft that she’d use it daily, regardless.

Myka can control herself, she’s not an animal, but she’s not entirely sure how much she can control her thoughts and her focus around this woman who both is and isn’t H.G.

But Emily Lake is cowering under a desk, Emily Lake squealed at the sight of a gun, and Emily Lake would probably feel extremely threatened to have to drive an unfamiliar man alone to her house, even if that man carried a Secret Service badge.  
So Myka rides with Emily and Pete follows in their SUV, and Myka tries not to stare at the way those hands curl around the synthetic leather of the wheel, at ten-and-two precisely.

“Is everything all right, officer?” Emily asks, because of course Myka has been staring anyway. She blinks, shakes her head like a stunned puppy, and says, “Yeah. You just remind me so much of someone I used to know.”

“What happened to her?”

“We… drifted apart. You know how it goes.”

Emily’s eyes are fixed on the road. Myka sees her lips reflected in the rearview parting and resting open for a long moment, tongue flicking over them, and then closing, saying nothing.

And, God, Myka isn’t lonely anymore, really, but she lived with loneliness for long enough to know how to spot it in others.  
In the apartment, Emily dashes out of the kitchen brandishing a knife upside-down and Myka feels a visceral urge to protect. She will put her body between this woman and any dangers because the incompetence isn’t H.G.’s but the foolhardy desire to protect what she loves--even if it’s an ugly grey cat… Well. That’s H.G. Wells to a tee.

It’s minutes, seconds after that that she loses her. And that’s yet another slice of H.G., Myka thinks: always at the last minute, always just a moment too late.

 

//

 

Claudia knows as soon as she sees the white walls in the video that she’s going to have nightmares for a month at least, because nothing fucking good ever happens in rooms with white walls and no windows.

They… They basically lobotomized her. They cut out everything about H.G. Wells that made her H.G. Motherfucking. Wells and they put it on a...coin? That they could stick in a vault?

If that’s not the best metaphor for everything wrong with the entire world then she doesn’t know what is.

Claudia doesn’t believe in “correction.” She knew people in the institution who hopped back and forth between jails and the hospitals who said the only thing that prison helped was to teach them exactly what they needed to do to make sure they got the pills they needed to forget they were in prison. One of them, a sociopath who was greater danger either to herself or to others depending on, like, the phases of the moon or which doctor she saw or whatever, had offered to give Claudia a stick-n-poke, but only if it said ACAB, and the only reason she hadn’t done it was because that damn hospital had been one of the only places in her life that had terrified her out of any rule-breaking that didn’t have the explicit goal of getting her the fuck out of there.

Helena can’t possibly feel fear, Claudia thinks, bisected as she is. Desperation, probably. When she’s awake to feel anything at all.

Like, at least when you’re lobotomized for real, you don’t actually know you're lobotomized. They don’t, like, slot the missing piece of your brain back into place once in awhile so they can chat with the old version of you, the one who’s so fucked up they felt the need to slice you apart in the first place.

Claudia had missed H.G. when she was gone, but she hadn’t forgiven her. She doesn’t know how she could ever forgive her, because the fact that she saved Claudia’s life that one time can’t make up for what she did to Myka, and then what she did to Claudia’s family by doing that to Myka.

Claudia’s not feeling forgiveness, right now, so much as a general feeling of enough, of stop it, of physical pain just below her ribcage, like a side ache, every time she thinks about it, and not forgiving her is not the same as recognizing that what’s been done to her is about a twenty-five on the one-to-ten scale of supremely-not-okay.

She looks at H.G. in that super-secret-Regent-cooler-vault-thing and recognizes the way she’s holding onto herself, keeping her arms in tight because she doesn’t want to have to feel the way she isn’t real, the way she probably isn’t really sure what real is like this, and she decides that once all this is over, once they’ve figured out what’s up with Sykes, then her number two priority, right after figuring out what the hell is going on with Jinksy, is going to be to break Helena out and put her back together again.

But then it’s like an hour later and somehow they’re standing in the middle of the goddamn forest and Pete is talking about ending her and Myka has her arms wrapped around herself the same way that H.G. did, like she’s afraid she’s about to lose something that’s going to end her, too.

Oh, God.

When she goes and gets H.G. from the car, it’s for H.G., sure, a little. But mostly it’s for Myka. Because Claudia can’t win this fight, and neither can H.G., but maybe Myka can if she’s got H.G. there, looking her in the eye.

But of course things go batshit in the way that only the Warehouse can make things go batshit, and there’s a tiny part of her that’s relieved because she knows that nothing would have ever been the same again if Pete had actually succeeded in killing the woman that Myka was in love with.

  
And then Steve is there. Of course, of course he’s a damn double agent, of course, and, okay, maybe they had to give him H.G., but she’s got the location in her pocket for Pete and Myka, Myka who practically deflates in relief when she hears that Steve is still a good guy and that he’s the one who’s got H.G., and for the first time in this entire case Claudia is starting to feel like they might actually have the upper hand.

 

//

 

Words, first, sore in a throat that has been sobbing. There have been words, before, in the moments of existence, but those words have lacked form, pressure in the gullet, physical vibration of the vocal cords.

Then: a glass of water.

It is cold, first, to the touch, between palm and fingers. Heavy enough to pull ever-so-slightly down, with gravity, just enough for the muscles of the arm to engage to keep it from dropping.

Raise it to lips: it's cool, not cold, and slides down the throat of a body that has been too distraught to realize it was thirsty.

That body is now, suddenly, no longer distraught. It is confused. The last memory of the mind now contained in this body was supposed to be that mind's last memory: a view of the sky, blue but without temperature, and the promise of the impending nothingness becoming the final one.

And now there is a glass of water. Touching lips. Sliding cool down that throat, filling it, soothing it, a gentle cooling from the inside out.

To drink a glass of water, after so much time, might be the most intimate thing a person can do.

//

Sykes is a patient man.

So he waits, patiently, while Wells sips at the water and gets herself worked back into her body. He knows what it feels like, after all, to have your body fucked with by an artifact. He knows how good, but how weird, it feels to have an artifact return you to where you're supposed to be.

"Marcus," he says, "you got her clothes, right?"

"Yeah, I'll get 'em," Marcus calls back.

The look on Wells' face is suspicious as all hell but unafraid, and it's weird to see that look coming from that face, red and blotchy like its been crying for hours, because it has been.

Marcus comes back to the room with the paper bag of Wells's clothes. Wells looks at Marcus, then at the bag, then back at Sykes. "You must think me a fool if you think I'm going to open that," she says.

"No," Sykes says. "I know you're not a fool. That's why I brought that to you. Here," He reaches up and takes the bag from Marcus. He opens it, then leans forward and pours the contents onto the sofa cushion beside her. Black tights, boots, a beige leather jacket, a cream shirt, a scarf. And then, with a rasping sound as metal slides against brown paper: a locket.  
Wells watches impassively as the clothing falls onto the sofa, but can't help but react to the sight of the locket. She reaches out, fingers extended to touch it, but at the last second pulls back.

"What do you want from me?" she asks.

Sykes shrugs. "Barely anything, really. I need your help in solving a puzzle."

"And how many people will die if I solve this puzzle for you?"

"None, if you do it right," Sykes says. "All I want is my life back. And to do that, I need my artifact back."

"What artifact is that?"

"The Collodi bracelet," he says.

She doesn't react. He knows that the Collodi bracelet was created during World War I, so she wouldn't know about it.

"Downside?" she says.

"Everyone surrounding the wearer becomes paranoid that the wearer is going to do something evil," he says, because as best he can determine it, it's the truth.

It's enough to get her to loosen up and pick up her damned locket. She turns it in her fingers, then opens it, and the face she makes at the picture inside makes Sykes want to roll his eyes.

"Where did you get this?" she asks.

Marcus shrugs. "At that inn where the agents lived. Broke in. One of them was holding on to it for you."

"Was it Myka?" she asks breathlessly.

Huh. That's something for Sykes to remember for later.

When Marcus nods, and says "Yeah, Steve-o here told me she had it; guess his old friend--the young one--knew she'd stashed it somewhere," Wells curls her fingers around the locket like she wants to warm it in her hand, and then slides her fingers along the chain to the clasp to fasten it around her neck.

She gathers the pile of clothing from the sofa beside her and stands up. "If you'll direct me to the loo, gentlemen, I'd like to change out of this terrible skirt and into these better clothes you've brought me."

Sykes smiles, indulgent. "Oh, honey," he says, "you're delusional if you think I trust you with any privacy right now."  
Wells cocks an eyebrow. The redness is fading from her face, the tears long-dried, and the ascerbic, cocky half-glare he's getting from her now better suits the kind of villain he hoped she'd turn out to be.

  
"Well, Mr. Sykes, you're delusional if you think I'm going to give you a peep show. But I can also tell you that the clothing I'm wearing now is even less conducive to artifact work than were the petticoats and corsets of my day, so if you want my help, you're at something of an impasse, aren't you?"

Sykes chuckles. He can't help it: he likes her. He raises a hand, snaps his fingers, and calls for Steve.

"Tell you what," Sykes says, "Marcus and I'll go around the corner, and Steve here will keep an eye on you while you change. He's a faggot, so he won't care what color your panties are. Good enough?"

Wells' eyes move from Sykes to Steve and back again. "Good enough," she says.

 

//

 

Marcus wheels Sykes out of the airport lounge and down onto the hangar floor; they need get the plane ready to go anyway.

"You going to try to pull anything if I turn my back on you?" Steve asks.

She cocks her head ever-so-slightly to the side, eyes narrowed, clearly intrigued. "No," she says.

She isn't lying. He nods and turns his back.

"That wasn't a nice word he used to describe you," H.G. says, through the rustle of moving fabric. "He doesn't seem like much of a friend."

"We're not friends, we're allies."

"Allies," she echoes, with scoff. "You're nothing but a henchman, Mr. Jinks. You can turn around now."

He does, and sees her bunching the pieces of Emily Lake's outfit into the paper sack. "What I am is none of your business," he says.

She walks over to him, and then closer, a step closer than is comfortable. Under her breath, she says, "I think it's very much my business. Young Claudia's even more so, isn't it?"

Steve grits his teeth and swallows.

"I'm a difficult woman to deceive, Mr. Jinks, because everything I know about this era I have learned through careful observation. You are no more allied with Sykes than I am."

Steve schools his features, careful not to breathe heavily or blink too fast. "Okay."

"So tell me: have we a plan to stop this?"

Undercover work requires you to radically trust your instincts about people. Steve’s always been good at undercover work because his ability to read people is so detailed, so particular. And he knows who she is, he knows what she did and he knows all the things Claudia loves and hates her for. He sees the fragments of Emily Lake in her, too: she plays now with her locket the way Emily played with the top button of her cardigan.

Instinct makes its judgment: he nods, just barely.

“Protect her if I can’t,” he says.

Her eyes narrow, but she nods. “With my life,” she says. Her lips tug up at the end, like she’s keeping a secret. “Both of them.”

 

//

 

He barely makes a sound when he dies.

A sharp intake of breath and then a near-silent catch of the lungs, clinging to the air in them, unwilling to let it go, until--

Until.

 

//

 

Pete has only heard a scream like that once before.

He heard it when his father died, and it came out of his throat.

He’s pretty sure he’s never wanted to kill anyone as much as he wants to kill Sykes when he hears that sound coming out of Claudia.

 

//

 

They’re on the plane and Wells has clammed right the fuck up. Like, seriously. They’re on a private jet, leather interior and reclining chairs, and she’s being all pissy.

Sykes takes a sip of his scotch. “Sure you don’t want a coffee or something, Ms. Wells?”

She blinks at him.

He shakes his glass at her, ice clinking. “I’d offer you some of the good stuff, but I don’t get the impression Emily Lake was much of a drinker, and the last thing I need is for you to get tipsy on me.”

Still nothing.

“Once this is done, though. It’s single malt. You’ll like it.”

The plane touches down in China and Marcus has pushed him halfway off the plane before it becomes clear that she’s not following.

“Wells,” he says. “Come on.”

But she doesn’t move.

“Wells,” he says, again. A pause, and a third time: “Wells.”

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” she says, and it’s the first damn thing she’s said since they left the airport.  
He shrugs, “Don’t say I didn’t try to play nice,” and gets the crop out.

 

//

 

The airline saw their secret service badges and gave them free upgrades, which Myka had desperately hoped would mean that she could sleep. But even in the cushy business-class seats, and even with the herbal tea she’d drunk shortly after takeoff, She finds herslf staring blankly at the seat-back screen in front of her, at the faint outline of her own reflection and the seatback and the overhead lights behind her.

Beside her, Pete is out cold. She envies that part of his army background: somehow or another you learn to sleep no matter how much stress you’re under because a tired soldier is a risk to himself and everyone around him.

But Myka closes her eyes and all she sees are Helena’s eyes looking up at her as she’d done… god, how long ago had they stood in the woods? Six hours ago, maybe? It had been a remarkable projection, solid enough to reflect the dappled light of the trees even in the moisture of her eyes. And Myka had craved, again, to touch, to push away those tears with the pad of her thumb. The way Helena had been slightly downhill had made her seem smaller than she was and it activated something almost maternal in Myka, an intimacy imbued with the desire to protect at all costs, similar to how she’d felt about Emily Lake.

Pete wakes up for the inflight meal before landing.

“Oh man, Mykes, this is awesome,” he says, “why can’t sesame noodles be a breakfast thing back home?”

Myka has to force herself to eat her own breakfast, not because of any problem with sesame noodles but because she’s no more hungry than she has been tired. “What do we do with her at the end of all this?”

Pete freezes mid-chew. Slowly, he starts again, then swallows, and chases it with a sip of his coffee. “We bring her back to HQ,” he says carefully, “and we write up a report of how things went down, once we know how they go down. And we see what gets said by the people in charge.”

Myka nods. She gives up on the noodles and takes the plastic wrap off her salad.  
She’s masticated her way through half the cup of wilted iceburg lettuce when she says, “If--if Sykes has put her back together--and, I mean, he must have, right?--if he’s done it I can’t sit by and watch them take her apart again.”

Pete nods. “I don’t like it either.”

“No, I mean…” Myka gives up and drops the plastic fork back onto the tray. “I mean I won’t… I can’t stay there if--”

“Hey.”

His hand curls over hers and only then does she notice that she’s got the crappy napkin crushed in her white-knuckled fist. She lets him work her fingers open and pry the paper out.

“If she’s taken his side in this, there’s not much I’ll stop them from doing,” he says. “But if she’s resisting, if she’s trying to help us right now, and then they try to Janus her up again, you won’t be the only one heading for the door.”

“Pete,” Myka says, through the tremor in her voice.

“She offered to sacrifice herself for the greater good yesterday, Mykes,” he says. “Something about her has changed. I don’t know what, but… something.”

So it’s with relief as much as excitement that Myka finds Helena’s locket on the basement floor. (It won’t be until later, once this is done, that she’ll think to wonder how Helena got the locket in the first place, how it was removed from the small box in her nightstand. She hasn’t opened that box since she put the locket in it, all those months ago, letting it be archived with her room when she left.)

Then there’s a bullet ricocheting off the stone wall near her head, an apology hollered right after, and Myka is more afraid for Helena than she is for herself. Even in the quick glance before she had to duck behind the wall she’d caught the artifact-induced shimmer overlaid on Helena’s skin and clothing, strangely making her look less real than she’d looked as a hologram.  
So Myka’s terror is overlaid with relief, because she’s here. For an artifact to control a body, a body must exist for the artifact to house its influence. So Helena is a body again.

A body out of her control, with a loaded gun she has no choice but to fire.

 

//

 

Oh, the power and stupidity of young love.

Sykes is almost disappointed, to be honest. Because it really shouldn’t have been so hard for him to get his hands on a bracelet protected by an organization whose best-and-brightest can’t even mask the fact that they’d probably lie down and fuck next to Tyler’s dead body if they didn’t have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

He makes Wells put Bering in the chair because if anything will work, that will, but even if it doesn’t, it’s funny to watch them both cry and sniffle and make oh-so-tragic googly eyes at one another.

The whole thing is so fucking entertaining that he’s almost disappointed when it works.

 

//

 

Myka blinks awake to a weight on her hip and thigh and when she reaches down to touch it, her fingers fumble into hair and a fraction of a second later her brain processes Helena.

Helena, whole and alive and physical, stirring awake as well.

But the thought escapes as fast as it arrives because the portal is closing and Sykes has got Pete on the other side. She leaps to her feet as best she can through the pain in her head and the sluggishness of her limbs, and she hauls Helena behind her by the wrist and they dash for the portal, but their hands slam into a golden, shimmering surface that they can’t pass through.

Beside her, Helena presses both palms against the wall and then lets her forehead fall to the stone between them, dejected. Myka hears her mutter “Bollocks” under her breath and of all the absurd, insane reactions, it makes her smile.  
She puts her hand to the leather of Helena’s jacket, feels the grit under her fingers from where she’d been lying on the ground, and says, “Come on.”

They go back to the table and stare at it side by side, at the pieces scattered to the floor around and under it. Myka studiously avoids looking at the brackets that had closed around her neck, holding it in place beneath the axe.

“Okay.” Myka takes a deep breath and turns to Helena. “Okay. If we reset the board as it was, do you think it will reset the portal?”

“That seems the obvious thing to try first,” Helena agrees, eyes fixed to the chessboard. Myka takes a step toward it and Helena surges forward, between her and the table, to perch on the empty chair and begin standing the toppled pieces onto their bases.

Myka crouches and reaches for the pieces scattered on the ground.

“I know you loved Caturanga, but to build this… He had to be a little disturbed. Right? Was he?”

Helena’s eyes fix on the head of the king as she sets it upright. “Not when I…” She shrugs, half-smiles, sadly. “He could have become anything, I suppose.” Her eyes don’t lift from the board and the pieces, avoiding Myka’s gaze.  
Myka clears her throat nervously and then scuttles backward like a crab to reach for a rook that had spun halfway across the chamber.

“I don’t remember how the board was set,” Helena says, louder than necessary. “I--I was, I saw them kill Steve, and then they’d put the boy in the chair, and then they put--I saw it, I read the board, but I don’t remember.”  
The rook goes to its corner spot on the board and then Myka ducks under the table to reach for the pieces there. “I remember,” she says.

And then, of all things, Helena starts to apologize. For surviving, and implicitly, Myka thinks, for failing to save the others, Steve and Tyler. And there are apologies that need to be traded, there are words that Myka would like to hear but this is not the time and those are not the reasons.

Myka’s tolerance for bullshit has gone through the roof since she started working with Pete, but still. There are limits, and certain lines of conversation that need to be shut down before they can go any further.

Then, only then, does Helena look at her. And she smiles.

“Wells and Bering, solving puzzles, saving the day?” she asks wryly.

The Warehouse, and by extension the world, are in mortal danger. Pete is in imminent danger, and she knows in the depths of her soul that the only way she can let him die is if she’s three feet away and about to go with him because the idea of living without his idiotic jokes and disgusting eating habits and videogame addiction and giant, boundless heart has somehow become quite literally unbearable.

But still, somehow, when Helena smiles at her, every piece of Myka’s soul can’t help but smile back.

“Bering and Wells,” she says.

 

//

 

When they stumble into the B&B from the Warehouse, everything feels so completely wrong that Leena has to resist the urge to tell them to turn around, walk out again, and come back in once they’ve worked out their issues.

Claudia’s aura is frayed and shredded as though someone had tried to cut it in half with dull scissors.

Myka comes in with Helena behind her, standing slightly too close, which makes sense because their energies are reaching out for one another, blurring into a soft purple where they blend but, on their opposite ends, stretching in jagged, flame-like tendrils of orange and yellow and gold, hot and tormented.

Pete is a sight for sore eyes. He’s exhausted, and confused, and stressed out, but still centered. He’ll need sleep, probably, but that’ll be all it will take for him to start feeling like himself again.

Everything about Artie is is red and charcoal in equal halves, the two colors butting up against each other on a clean, precise line the like of which she’s never seen.

“Everyone OK with take-out? Indian?” she says, trying to smile, and very intentionally not suggesting Chinese. “Cooking has kind of… fallen by the wayside today.”

Claudia rolls her eyes and turns to clomp up the stairs. The old house shakes with the force of her door slamming.  
Artie sighs. “Butter chicken. And samosas. Please.” He turns and disappears into the library.

Pete runs a hand over his head. “You know I’m easy to please,” he says, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll start the drive. Order now and it’ll be ready when I get there, right?”

Leena nods, and she’s left with Helena and Myka, hovering awkwardly side by side but not touching. She shrugs at them: “Requests?”

“Might I take a shower?” Helena asks, rushed, the words tumbling out of her as though overflowing past a fractured dam.  
She’s blinking distractedly at Leena, then at the floor beneath Leena’s feet.

Myka flinches, then reaches over and puts her hand on Helena’s elbow with a gentleness that almost makes Leena ache. From the point of contact a wave of blue surges through Helena’s aura. Helena looks over at Myka, then toward Leena, and then says, as she realizes her misunderstanding, “Indian, yes. I’ve never… I don’t really know what it tastes like, in this century, so…” she trails off.

“I’d love if you could order that spinach paneer thing I like,” Myka says, eyes still on H.G. “Thanks, Leena. We’ll just--”

“Go get her that shower,” Leena says.  
  
There’s an ache, a loneliness and a sadness that passes between them as they turn and Myka guides Helena ahead of her up the stairs.

 

//

 

Myka grabs a clean towel and washcloth from the linen cabinet in he landing. Her eyes dart to the room that had been Steve’s, long empty and closed but the door is ajar now. Claudia must be in there. Something, a sob, threatens to heave up in Myka’s chest but she swallows and pushes it down and guides Helena to her bedroom.

“I’ll get you some clothes for tonight,” she says. “Tomorrow maybe we can see about getting some of your stuff out of the archive if--”

Helena interrupts with an incredulous bark of laughter. “If I’m permitted to remain.” Remain at the Warehouse, remain with her mind and body intact, remain unbronzed and alive. Then: “Emily Lake wore atrocious perfume.”

Myka flinches, fingers clenching in a pair of yoga pants half pulled out of a drawer.

“One would think it would have faded by now, more than a day since she last applied it. And it has, mostly. But then I turn my head just so and I catch a trace of it again.”

“I noticed it back in the rigging rope,” Myka says, clutching the yoga pants to her chest with one hand as she fiddles in a different drawer for a t-shirt with the other. “It’s not a terrible scent, but--”

“It is a terrible scent. Floral and… saccharine.”

The cotton in Mykas hands is soft and worn. She holds it out toward Helena, who glances from it to Myka’s face and back before taking it onto her outstretched palm like an awkward offering.

Helena’s feet seem rooted in the middle of the room, and for a moment Myka could easily forget that she’s not a hologram anymore, unable to touch things.

(Except, no, she could not forget that at all.)

“Do you think we killed her by bringing me back?” she asks quietly.

Myka sighs and perches on the corner of the bed. “I don’t know,” she says. “You know so much more about this kind of thing, about consciousness and how it attaches to bodies. Do you… feel her inside you?”

“I don’t know,” Helena says, her voice more forlorn and hesitant than Myka has ever heard it.

Helena’s shadow is long across the floor, her profile caught in the golden light of the setting sun through the west-facing window in Myka’s room. The overhead light is off, so Helena is bisected, the right half of her face and body glowing, the left cast in shadow so dark it obscures her features.

Myka is tired. She’s so, so tired. Steve is gone, and Claudia is probably sobbing next door, and Helena is here, here, captivating as she’s always been even like this, so obviously broken but in a very different way than she’d been before. And there’s no help, not really, that Myka can give to any of them.

“I don’t usually wear fragrance,” she says, waving a hand vaguely at the clothes in Helena’s hands, “and Leena uses unscented detergent so hopefully those won’t… you know.”

“Yes, thank you for this,” Helena says, gesturing a little with the clothing in her hands. She lays them on top of the towels sitting on the edge of the bed and then takes the whole stack across the hall to the bathroom.

Myka waits for the sound of the water in the old pipes before she stands and goes back to the bureau. She finds an old Colorado hoodie in the bottom drawer and puts it on in place of her bra and the cute but not terribly comfortable lacy thing she’d been wearing before. Then she walks down the hall to Steve’s room. She knocks quietly on the door. “Claud?”

No answer.

Myka pushes the door open and she’s there, curled on her side in the middle of the blue bedspread, her back to the door.

“Go away,” Claudia says.

But Myka doesn’t. She walks forward slowly and sits on the edge of the bed, tugging her sleeves nervously over her hands.  
“Claudia, I know how you feel--”

“Oh, fuck off,” Claudia growls, her body tensing. “You got your--you got her back today, and she tried to end the damn world and because of her Steve is dead. He’s dead. So no, you have no idea how I feel.”

Myka’s thinking about Sam, not Helena, right now, but Claudia doesn’t understand that. And this isn’t the time to try to explain.

“Go away, Myka.”

Myka hates this feeling of helplessness. Her hands are shaking, pulse pounding in her fingertips, but what can she do? What can she possibly do?

She reaches over and squeezes Claudia’s shoulder, but Claudia flinches away.

Myka hadn’t noticed the water stopping but Helena is in Myka’s room when she comes back, facing out the window, wet tracks trailing from where her hair rests against the back of her t-shirt.

“Feel better?” Myka asks.

Helena spins, and smiles cautiously--the first smile Myka’s seen from her since the vault. “Yes, thank you.” She uses the corner of the towel to dry behind her ears, the back of her neck, and something catches in Myka’s gut. The moment feels so perfectly, unbearably intimate. In this moment of upheaval, where everything feels wrong, Myka feels an overwhelming impulse to take the towel from Helena’s hands, to work the wet tangles out with her fingers and run her nails over Helena’s scalp, to feel Helena relax into the touch, softening, her head tipping forward--

“Myka?”

Myka blinks, twitches a little and sees Helena looking at her wryly, lips curved into a gentle smirk.

“I asked if I might borrow your comb,” she says.

Myka’s face burns. “Of course,” she says, and can’t turn away fast enough to face the dresser and grab the wide-toothed comb in the basket on top, beside the mirror. She steals a deep breath, willing the color from her cheeks before she turns back and Helena is grinning rakishly now, an eyebrow cocked, because of course, of course, she noticed and she understands.  
She holds the comb by the teeth to offer Helena the handle but Helena reaches past the handle so their fingers brush. And, God, her emotions have been everywhere, Steve is dead, that kid Tyler died right in front of her (and he may have been a little shit, but he didn’t deserve that), but the world didn’t end, they saved it again, and Helena is here, she’s here, and she helped, she helped, she saved Myka’s life in that chair and saved the world by doing it. So for once, for once, Myka doesn’t think, she doesn’t question, she just moves. She hooks her fingers into Helena’s and lets the comb slip out and she pulls. She steps forward, and Helena steps forward, and the tips of Myka’s fingers slide up along Helena’s jaw until they slip into a nape of wet hair and then, as she tips her lips down, catches a flash of surprise, the fast dilation of pupils and a sharp intake of breath and then--

Helena’s lips, present and responsive, are not surprised. Helena’s hands, which leap up to cradle Myka’s jaw, are not surprised either. It’s a kiss that begins hurried but slows, their mouths opening together and offering themselves. Helena teases the tip of Myka’s tongue with her own and Myka’s diaphragm jolts, her knees twitching. Myka’s fingers dig deep into that wet hair and steps closer still, and through the softness of their clothes she can feel every curve, she can feel Helena’s breasts just below her own, Helena’s hands curling around her ribs. She isn’t thinking as her own hands slide down, her fingertips hooking under the t-shirt and pulling it up just enough to feel skin.

The front door slams and Pete’s voice carries up the stairs: “Dinner!” and it’s enough to make Myka and Helena surge apart.  
Helena’s lips are damp and a little swollen. She bites the lower one, eyes flicking from Myka’s lips to her eyes, and smiles.

“What changed?”

Myka barks out a laugh at that, and sits down on the edge of the bed. Because what hasn’t changed? But this--but when it comes to Helena. Well.

“This is the only thing that hasn’t changed,” she says. Because this has always been there, underneath everything else.  
Helena holds Myka’s eyes and for just a flash, her smile is open and unguarded. “You’re a wonder, Myka Bering.”

  
“This from the woman who’s been alive for over a century.” Myka reaches out and grabs Helena’s hand and Helena lets herself be pulled forward into the space between her knees. But it’s Helena who starts the kiss, bending down to Myka’s upturned lips, but more chastely, this time.

“Mykes! H.G.! I do not promise to leave you any tandoori chicken unless you get your tuckuses down here now!”  
They part more slowly. Helena says, “You go down. I should… comb.”

Myka laughs breathily through her smile. “Right. Comb,” she says. But she lets Helena step back and bend to pick up the comb where it had fallen on the rug.

She can’t resist one more parting kiss before slipping out of the room, closing the door behind her.

 

//

 

Leena sees Myka’s aura when she comes into the dining room. She sees Helena’s when she follows a few minutes later.  
She doesn’t know whether to be relieved at the good that may come from this terrible day, or to want to smack them both for choosing today, of all days, to do this.

She makes a plate for Claudia and brings it upstairs after dinner. Just before she ducks into Steve’s room she spots Helena and Myka walking together, too close, toward Myka’s room.

 

//

 

Myka gives Helena a new, clean toothbrush from the multipack she keeps in her drawer, and leaves her alone in the room for long enough to have a quick shower of her own. Wearing sleep clothes, towel in hand, she peeks around the corner into the open door of Steve’s room. Leena, magical Leena, has apparently gotten through to Claudia who is curled into her side, her face pressed to the crook of Leena’s neck, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Leena’s eyes flit over and meet Myka’s. They narrow, questioning but not unhappy. Go, she indicates, flicking her gaze in the direction of Myka’s room, and Myka smiles tightly, and nods, and does.

 

//

 

Helena leans on the edge of Myka’s mattress, hands loosely fisted between her knees, and looks up with a radiant smile as Myka steps back into the room. She’s turned on the bedside lamp and drawn the curtain in the dormer window and the room feels warm, den-like. Helena’s eyes, anticipatory and slightly anxious, meet hers, and she rises slowly to her feet. The springs of the old mattress protest, and the floorboards groan, and Helena is present and looking and the impulse that drives Myka across the room is the strongest she’s ever felt. Her hands need to touch Helena’s corporal body, her eyes that forget nothing are desperate to remember the sight of this, of Helena’s eyes widening as Myka approaches and then disappearing when Myka is too close, sight replaced by touch, the seeking pressure of Helena’s tongue against hers, of Helena’s hands tangling and tugging at her shirt.

They shouldn’t be doing this. Myka isn’t even sure she knows how to do this. There should be a conversation first: about the future, about known unknowns, about limits and boundaries and desires. But Helena is drawing her back onto the bed, leading her by the lips and Myka can’t bear to be further from her than this, not now, not ever. Closer, she needs to be closer, so she finds the skin of Helena’s back, under the shirt, with her palms, and Helena arches up in invitation. The shirt goes without a thought and Myka dives for a nipple, artlessly and desperately pleasing it with her mouth until she feels the vibrations of Helena’s groan against her lips. She treats the other nipple the same.

Somehow between that and Helena reclaiming her mouth, she loses her shirt too. Helena is phenomenally responsive, twitching at the slightest touch, and when she begins to grind upward into the point of Myka’s hip, Myka falters. “Tell me,” she breathes into Helena’s lips. “I’ve never done this.”

Helena breaks the kiss just long enough to hook a thumb in her own waistband and push her pants down below her hips and then off. She fumbles for and finds Myka’s hand with hers and brings it to her lips, holding Myka’s gaze as she--oh god--draws two fingers into her mouth and wets them with her tongue. But Myka discovers quickly that there’s no need for the extra wet because those fingers, guided by Helena’s hand, find a body slick and open.

“Here,” Helena gasps. “Please.”

Myka’s fingers slip and press, driven by something between intent and intuition, but it seems to be working. Helena huffs desperate, open-mouthed breaths into the curve of Myka’s shoulder, recapturing herself enough to press occasional kisses to the skin. With a whispered Myka her body suddenly, beautifully tightens and arches and Myka knows enough to know to keep curling her fingers in that way, keep moving her thumb where she’s moving it, even though Helena’s hand darts down to cover hers, keeping it in place.

(In the morning, when Helena is gone, Myka will consider the extent of her foolhardiness. She’ll book an appointment in two weeks with her nurse practitioner to get an STD test, because not even Helena knows a thing about Emily Lake’s sexual past. She’ll wonder if Helena will think to do the same. She’ll wish she had a way to contact her to suggest it, and hopes for days for a message from a newly-created email address or a newly-purchased cell phone, but: nothing.

Nothing.)

 

//

 

A sip of water had been the first thing.

Then, a change of clothing.

A use of the toilet.

And then this: a dull, sweet ache between the thighs. A tenderness of the nipples. A purpling mark at the swell of the breast. A parched throat, and fingers that turn slick under running water. The taste of another’s body on the tongue and lips and throat. The traces of another’s fingertips along a jawline, the soft inside of the elbows, the outer bend of a hip. The echoes of another’s breath, voice in the ear making sounds that were not words.

Two hours before, that body had been most aware of the garish pink paint on its toenails. The fine lines along the inside of its forearm where, it appears, a catscratch had left a scar. It had hyperventilated in the shower upon the discovery of another, slightly larger scar that indicated that this body had, in all likelihood, had its appendix removed.

  
That body had laid a hand over the low curve of its abdomen and had wondered about its own doings over the past--what was it? A year? Longer?

What had it eaten? What illnesses had it contracted? Had it taken lovers?

That body had braced a hand against the tile, cool despite the hot water beating against it, and worked to breathe through the shudders in her diaphragm, had fought an instinct to scratch its own fingernails down its arms simply to see marks it could understand.

But that body has, instead, been tugged as if magnetized to another, welcome body

(and so much more than a body: this body feels that its soul has been drawn to the other, validated by it)

and remembers, at least for a moment, what it feels like to _be_.

 

//

 

Irene finds Helena in the kitchen. The house is dark, its inhabitants long asleep, but Helena stands by the sink, drinking a glass of water from the tap and spitting half of it out in surprise when she spots Irene in the corner of her eye, by the refrigerator.

  
“Heavens,” she says, clutching her chest, “You gave me a fright.”

“Did I,” Irene says, knowing perfectly that she did, and that it’s precisely what she intended to do.

Helena refills her glass from the tap and sips from it, eyes averted toward the window over the sink. The darkness outside is impenetrable: all she can see is her own reflection.

“The feeling of water in the throat is the most wonderful thing,” Helena says. “I can’t get enough of it. I think Emily must have been dehydrated.”

“Or perhaps you’ve been working too hard,” she says. She cocks an eyebrow. “How is Agent Bering recovering after these trying few days?”

The water glass pauses for just a moment, halfway down from Helena’s lips, and Irene meets her gaze in the reflection in the darkened window.

“She seems well,” Helena offers, noncommittally.

“You’ve seen to that,” Irene retorts dryly.

The glass goes to the counter, and Helena slumps down against her hands, braced on the front of the sink.

“It seemed too much to hope that I might be permitted to have this,” she says quietly.

“Agent Bering isn’t a possession to be had, Helena.”

“Don’t be obtuse,” Helena whispers harshly. “She need not be my possession for The happiness she gives me to be mine. My love for her is mine.”

“Hmm,” Irene says.

A lull in conversation descends into stalemate, their eyes locked in the reflection. The heating system whirs to life with a clanking of old ducts. The grandfather clock in the study chimes two o’clock.

“Mercy,” Helena finally utters. “Please. I’m not above begging.”

“Don’t,” Irene says. “It doesn’t become you, and wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Kosan is immune to such theatrics.”

  
“There’d be no theatrics to it. I assure you, my desperation is entirely real.”

Irene doesn’t doubt it. Helena Wells loves rarely, but wholly, and more often than not has paid dearly for it: she lost her parents for the love of a girl, her dignity for the love of a married man. And now she must gamble: her freedom on the line for the first person who might, in fact, be able to give her the happiness she seeks.

“I’ll present the facts of the past few days, as I know them, to the Regents when they gather tomorrow,” Irene says. “I will request clemency as best I can justify it. But let me make this clear: while I think the chances are good that you’ll be granted a degree of supervised freedom, I want you nowhere near my Warehouse.”

Helena wilts.

“You’ve been an unparallelled agent, but a dangerous one. I won’t have more agents’ lives placed at risk by your--forgive me--somewhat unpredictable nature in the presence of artifacts.”

In the reflection, Irene sees Helena flinch, but then her face goes slack, a moue of resignation.

  
“Helena,” Irene says, more gently. She steps to her and, after a brief hesitation, lifts a hand to her shoulder, momentarily surprised to find it substantive to the touch.

Helena doesn’t move.

“Talk to Myka, Helena.”

“And say what, Irene?” Helena spits. She wheels around, shrugging out from under the hand on her shoulder, and steps away. “Please, my darling Myka, walk away from the most fulfilling career you could imagine, from the people you consider to be your family, and come away with me? I’ve got my body back now, after all, which means I’ve only, oh, a million more steps to take before I can become an approximation of a functional person? And, don’t worry, the Regents will be monitoring my every move by way of that blasted football which, despite its name, is actually thrown by hand?”

“Helena--”

“Thank you for your guidance, Irene. Invaluable as ever, I’m sure.” She shoulders her way past, toward the hallway and then up the stairs. A door creaks open, and clicks shut. A scant moment later, it opens again, and Helena comes back down, dressed in street clothes instead of the pyjamas she wore before.

“I have no vehicle, no clothing, and no money,” Helena announces, matter-of-factly. “Would you be so kind as to take me to a hotel in Featherhead to await my sentencing?”

Irene sighs. “You’re being a fool, Helena.”

“Thank you for that unsolicited opinion, Irene. I’m ready to leave now.”

So Irene shakes her head and follows Helena out the front door to her waiting car.


End file.
